Room for Rent and other rental scams
by elepe Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:45 am
Hello!
I want to let people know about a scam in a flat to let in Belfast city centre. I saw the ad in Vivastreet and contacted the owner.
At first it was an evangelist pastor's wife who answered my email and explained that herself and her husband and son had to move to West Africa because of his husband's job (he is supposed to be an evangelist pastor).
She told me the needed someone who would take good care of their apartment as it was their only valuable property and asked me for my full name, address, age, job, etc.
A second email came when I answered all their questions. This time it was "Pastor Collins" who wrote and told me I had been approved as their new tenant (he actually used those words) and that they needed me to send money to them with Western Union and as soon as they got it they would send a package with the documents and the keys. I was already suspicious at the beginning because of the way the wrote, they didn't sound british but when I was asked to send money I started to get more and more suspicious so I asked for photos again and I asked if they had someone in Belfast who I could meet to get the keys from. The answer to this was that the only person they trusted for that had travelled to Germany (but they trusted me to stay in "their flat").
In the ad they had only posted one photo, so when he send the rest, the first thing I did was look for the in google. All the photos belonged to other rented flats. Two photos where even in more than one ad.

So, don't trust anyone who says he is an Evangelist Pastor named Phil Collins ([email protected]), that lives in West Africa and that rents a flat in the UK.

This is the ad: http://property.vivastreet.co.uk/rent+belfast-bt2/-charming-independent-beautiful-2bedroom-flat/84994813

And these were the photos given:
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Thank you and good look renting!
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