I suspect this is a scam...

Hi!
I have a little flat that I rent out travellers. It is advertised on the internet so I regularly get enquiries. I suspect this one is a scam but I dont understand what would someone earn from a situation like this? The email is as follows:


"Dear ****,

Thank you for writing back and letting me know the dates are available.This booking that I plan on making is basically not for me but for a newly wedded couple which is my son and his wife. I am making this reservation for them with out there consent because its suppose to be a gift from me to them for their honey moon. They have been dreaming for an honey moon trip for a long long while even before getting married and most probably spend it in a nice lodge in there. But with their current financial situation, the plans have become impossible and were put on a halt.

As a father who understands the needs and wants of a young newly wedded couple, I decided within myself to help make their honeymoon dreams and plans come true and surprise them with a package. It’s an all expense paid vacation with fully paid accommodation at your lodge but I will need you help as the owner or manager of the lodge to assist me in making this surprise possible as well too because I am elderly man and might not be around due to my current failing health condition. I am always in and out of the hospital these days. It’s really sad but I can’t help it.

Well my plan to surprise the 2 lovebirds with a surprise gift and were your assistance is needed is as follows below:

I will have my financials in switzerland or england send full payment of the lodge once because i am very okay with the price at ****euros. Upon the receipt of payment, you shall let me know acknowledging its receipt so that I am rest assured we are in order. I will provide you with full contactable details of my son. Then a week to the start date of the lodge, you will contact my son and his wife informing them and breaking the good news of there all expense paid trip and send them there confirmation to that effect. I hope you or your management will be able to pull this off for me in the best professional way you can and also I hope I am not asking too much from you? Please let me know if its okay by you and you can make this happen for me. If okay, kindly send me your full names and contact address for payment so that I can pass it across to my financials to make out your cheque immediately and send to you accordingly. Mode of payment is via euro cheque only. Also if there is any other thing you think off to help spice the whole arrangement, do not hesitate to let me know so that I can look into as well maybe to have it included into the package.

I wait to hear from you.
Sincerely Yours
Stefan Lawley"

I would appreciate any advice on this.
Thanks

This is not one I've heard of, but it does sound strange. Could you post the complete email headers (obfuscate your own address, of course)? Where does he claim to be?

Yes, it is a scam. The scammer will send you a fake check or money order have you cash it at your bank. Days, weeks even months later the bank will inform you that it was a fake. You will have to re-pay the money back to the bank and possibly be investigated for bank fraud.

The scammer is setting up the scenario where he will send the fake check/money order to you. Later the scammer will claim the couple is unable to travel because of some situation with the grooms sickly father. Then requesting a refund. They could also claim they sent an over payment. This money may need to be sent to a travel agent. All parties are most likely the same person / scammer .

In all situations the scammer will insist that you send money to them via Western Union or Money Gram. If you were to send the money. You will never see it again.

Please do post the email and headers as previously asked.

Bryon

Thanks for your answer.
He did not claim to be anywhere and I did not ask because for me as a rent owner that doesn't really matter...
All I can see is that this man wants to send me a cheque for which I have plenty time until the actual date to see if it clears or bounces. So all he could gain out from this is my address where he sends the cheque. If it is a scam, its a weird one...
This is the header:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: from smtp-in-160.livemail.co.uk (213.171.216.160) by
exch2-ht01.email2.local (10.44.216.66) with Microsoft SMTP Server id
14.2.247.3; Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:04:00 +0100
Received: from virus-23.livemail.co.uk (virus-cluster.livemail.co.uk
[213.171.216.10]) by smtp-in-160.livemail.co.uk (Postfix) with SMTP id
F0C662600A3 for <[email protected]>; Tue, 24 Jul 2012
08:03:59 +0100 (BST)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on
spam_211.livemail.co.uk
X-Spam-Level: **
X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.2 required=5.0 tests=HTML_MESSAGE,
HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG,MIME_HTML_ONLY shortcircuit=no autolearn=disabled
version=3.3.1
Received: from mout.gmx.net (mout.gmx.net [212.227.15.16]) by
smtp-in-73.livemail.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5EE3E654010 for
<[email protected]>; Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:03:59 +0100 (BST)
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:00:57 +0200
From: Stefan lawley <[email protected]>
To: V-S- <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <80016665.427163.1343113257568.JavaMail.tomcat6@ibriss06.dlan.cinetic.de>
In-Reply-To: [email protected]
References: [email protected]
Subject: Thanks For Writing Back
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
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X-Origin-Recipient: [email protected]
X-Origin: V- S- <[email protected]>
X-Origin-Subject: Re
X-Origin-Received: 24 Jul 2012 01
X-Mailer: trinity {0}
X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:4xppjm3WS7FrVdXMbjOAlQqTzYTrl4JsNLSN1VxQ5wN
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gidVV
X-Original-To: [email protected]
X-AntiVirus: checked by Vexira MailArmor
Return-Path: [email protected]
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthSource: exch2-ht01.email2.local
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthAs: Anonymous

Yes, it is a scam. The scammer will send you a fake check or money order have you cash it at your bank. Days, weeks even months later the bank will inform you that it was a fake. You will have to re-pay the money back to the bank and possibly be investigated for bank fraud.

The scammer is setting up the scenario where he will send the fake check/money order to you. Later the scammer will claim the couple is unable to travel because of some situation with the grooms sickly father. Then requesting a refund. They could also claim they sent an over payment. This money may need to be sent to a travel agent. All parties are most likely the same person / scammer .

In all situations the scammer will insist that you send money to them via Western Union or Money Gram. If you were to send the money. You will never see it again.

Please do post the email and headers as previously asked.

Bryon

Thanks Bryon!
Now it all makes sense.
I am rubbish with these bank matters.
Can I ask my bank to see if the cheque is valid and only take the money if it was valid....so no need to repay the bank nothing....?

The header is most interesting. It has really been sent to you from livemail.co.uk because they have been used as the relay point. Put simply, the trickster has fiddled with the header and no legitimate person would do so.

Wow. You guys are good. Many thanks.
Now I feel like I have to learn about how to spot if a header was fiddled with...

GMX sent it to Livemail, which added several headers between the two Received headers. As GMX is the mail server for qualityservice.com, that makes sense. However, there is no clue where GMX got the message from. It looks like it got it from thin air.

qualityservice.com has too many years on its domain registration to be a scam domain.