by patchface
Thu May 30, 2013 7:32 am
Hi,
The double bedroom with en suite bathroom is still available and there won't be any problem inviting you for viewing, I currently work and live in Wales so I'll need to take a day off from work in order to come up and arrange the viewing with you. It is unfortunate that my past bitter experience of inviting people to come and view my flat without any form of confirmation of their financial ability and not keeping up to time as at when scheduled, has brought about great loss to me, is either they cannot afford the rent or the security deposit required but want me to come up with the aim of renegotiating.
I have consulted my lawyer and we have resolved that any potential tenants should be able to prove in the following way in order to determine who is financially buoyant and that he or she can stick to appointment when scheduled and able to pay his/her rent as at when due. In this case, a bank-statement or guarantee from your organization wont be accepted as we have had wayward tenants tendering fake documents.
PROCEDURE:
1) Transfer the amount £900 (1 month rent and security deposit) to any of your family members or your close friend via Western Union Online.
Your name (as Sender) to any of your family members or your close friend (as Receiver) in Edinburgh.
2) Scan & Send a copy of the Western Union transaction receipt as a proof of the transaction or mail me the transaction details should in case you don't have access to a scanner (The money is safe since you're the only one that can withdraw/cancel since you only need an ID card or International passport)
3) Then, we will meet for viewing
4) If you decided to take the apartment, we'll both go to any local Western Union outlet close to the flat for you to pick up the money and pay me. (You don't need to come with cash for viewing but we can both go after viewing to cancel the transfer and withdraw the money to pay me).
5) A receipt showing for your payment will be issued and handed over to you after signing the contract.
I don't want you to have the feelings that am asking you for money BEFORE viewing the flat because payment is meant to be done AFTER you might have seen the flat and if it's okay by you, that's why i said you should make the transfer to yourself so that you will be the one to receive the money and pay me in person after the viewing and signing of the contract.
If you are ready, you can go ahead and make the transfer and inform me immediately the transfer is done so that i can make myself available to come over and meet with you. You will need to scan the copy of the transfer receipt and email it to me for confirmation online showing the transfer has truly been made and to let you know that I'll be the one to refund back to you the full WU transfer charges whether you decided to rent the apartment or not on meeting. Note,this procedure will only guarantee me how serious and keen you are regarding the property.
Let me know if you are okay with this arrangement so that we can proceed.
This was after 2-3 emails between us (moving from Gumtree email system to just plain Yahoo-Gmail between us). Up until this point there was nothing to indicate it was a scam.
The replies were signed "Curry and Michelle". Email sent via: [email protected]
To pretty much put the last nail in the coffin, I checked the email headers (easy on Gmail, just click the down arrow next to the big reply button and select 'Show original' from the menu. The senders originating IP address is listed:
Received: from [41.206.12.31] by web160902.mail.bf1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 29 May 2013 16:24:43 PDT
Which if you do a quick WHOIS look-up will tell you the following about where the email originated:
[whois.afrinic.net]
% This is the AfriNIC Whois server.
% Note: this output has been filtered.
% Information related to '41.206.0.0 - 41.206.31.255'
inetnum: 41.206.0.0 - 41.206.31.255
netname: MTN-Nigeria
descr: MTN Nigeria
country: NG
admin-c: AE32-AFRINIC
tech-c: AE32-AFRINIC
org: ORG-MN1-AFRINIC
status: ALLOCATED PA
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-lower: MTNNIGERA1-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
parent: 41.0.0.0 - 41.255.255.255
organisation: ORG-MN1-AFRINIC
org-name: MTN Nigeria
org-type: LIR
country: NG
address: Golden Plaza,
address: Falomo Roundabout,
address: Ikoyi
address: Lagos
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: +234 803 200 5038
admin-c: MA56-AFRINIC
tech-c: AE32-AFRINIC
mnt-ref: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
mnt-ref: MTNNIGERA1-MNT
mnt-by: AFRINIC-HM-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
person: Atte Enyenihi
nic-hdl: AE32-AFRINIC
address: MTN Nigeria Communications Limited
address: Plot 1612 Adeola Hopewell Street
address: Victoria Island
address: Lagos State
address: Nigeria
address: lagos
address: Nigeria
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: +2348032009260
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
I thought they might be smarter than that and use a VPN/proxy to disguise where it came from but no, classic Nigeria. To be honest this nearly slipped past me since it doesn't directly ask you to send any money. If I hadn't chatted to my Dad about it, who highlighted the cynical nature of the request there's half a chance I'd have fallen for it. As I found out through a bit of Googling, this is an old an common scam and they just use a fake ID and your WU receipt to collect the money, as per:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7648092.stm
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation ... arget.html