by ncovey
Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:12 am
tl;dr: Almost got tricked into paying a deposit for a bogus room, but gave some personal information. People living there have tried contacting the police with no success. I am still in contact with the scammer and he/she does not know that I know that he/she is a scammer. Going to contact FBI/IC3. What else can I do?
I haven't actually given this person any money, but I have divulged my date of birth, first and last name, current address, and cellphone number. I believe that these can be used to steal my identity, but I'm not an expert. However, I do not know for certain if this online scammer plans to use this information for identity theft or just wants my money.
To elaborate, I was looking for housing near my university and I went to a website called Roomster. It's some roommate search engine that lets people find a potential roommate. So I message everyone in my price range and in my area. One or two messages come back immediately but I have to pay Roomster $6 to be able to access my messages for 3 days (and even more money for a month!). This is obviously a scam, but not the one I'm going to fall for.
I do get one message directly from an email address saying that this person lives in a place not to far from my school (I mentioned the school I go to on my profile). "She" gave me an really good offer for a place to stay, but comparable to other offers that were on Roomster.
Her English was atrocious. That should have tipped me off, but I wasn't one to judge (maybe she's from a foreign country). I asked to see the place since she provided me with an address and pictures and she was down in San Diego because her mother was "lttle" (I assumed she meant "ill"). We exchanged phone numbers and I tried doing a white pages search to see where this number was from. It's a VoIP from Oregon (again, I should have realized this might be a fraud). I did a TinEye and Google images reverse search to see if the pictures might be legit. I didn't get anything, so I figured maybe it's real. I even got her to send me a picture of herself (also reverse image searched)--which now I'm pretty sure is definitely not him/her. Anyways, I ended up providing information to fill out a lease (but not my signature). Definitely should not have done that. A fake lease was even emailed to me with terms and conditions, but also poor English.
So today I went to visit the place; I figure maybe there's a tenant living there (it's apparently a 4-bedroom house--another thing that should have tipped me off, but I had trouble reading the house numbers in Google maps street view, so I thought it's possible that there is a 4-bedroom house somewhere on that street). I knock on the door and ask if the property is managed by so-and-so and the occupant tells me that there is a scam going around where students out-of-state and out-of-country have been showing up, bags and everything, ready to move into their house. All of these kids lost their deposit obviously. The actual residents of the house and their landlord have tried contacting the police several times. There would be no victims for a while, but then it would start up again. Apparently the police are unable to locate the person because they might be outside the U.S. The resident suggested that we should contact the FBI.
I have not called the scammer out on it through our email or text-message exchanges, and he/she seems more pushy than usual to get me to sign the lease. I will let the FBI/IC3 instruct me on what steps I should take, and how I can best cooperate with them to resolve this issue. I went to the IC3 website and looked at the FAQ's. It seems like what I'm supposed to do is file a "complaint" and let them assign an agent to the case if they think it's valid. This seems tedious and I don't want this person to get away with what they have been doing for years.
I'm hoping this is just a case of investment fraud and not identity theft. Also, I'm wondering how he/she got my email address. I didn't post it on Roomster publicly, and only used it to register an account.
Is there anything else I can do?
Thanks for your help!
I haven't actually given this person any money, but I have divulged my date of birth, first and last name, current address, and cellphone number. I believe that these can be used to steal my identity, but I'm not an expert. However, I do not know for certain if this online scammer plans to use this information for identity theft or just wants my money.
To elaborate, I was looking for housing near my university and I went to a website called Roomster. It's some roommate search engine that lets people find a potential roommate. So I message everyone in my price range and in my area. One or two messages come back immediately but I have to pay Roomster $6 to be able to access my messages for 3 days (and even more money for a month!). This is obviously a scam, but not the one I'm going to fall for.
I do get one message directly from an email address saying that this person lives in a place not to far from my school (I mentioned the school I go to on my profile). "She" gave me an really good offer for a place to stay, but comparable to other offers that were on Roomster.
Her English was atrocious. That should have tipped me off, but I wasn't one to judge (maybe she's from a foreign country). I asked to see the place since she provided me with an address and pictures and she was down in San Diego because her mother was "lttle" (I assumed she meant "ill"). We exchanged phone numbers and I tried doing a white pages search to see where this number was from. It's a VoIP from Oregon (again, I should have realized this might be a fraud). I did a TinEye and Google images reverse search to see if the pictures might be legit. I didn't get anything, so I figured maybe it's real. I even got her to send me a picture of herself (also reverse image searched)--which now I'm pretty sure is definitely not him/her. Anyways, I ended up providing information to fill out a lease (but not my signature). Definitely should not have done that. A fake lease was even emailed to me with terms and conditions, but also poor English.
So today I went to visit the place; I figure maybe there's a tenant living there (it's apparently a 4-bedroom house--another thing that should have tipped me off, but I had trouble reading the house numbers in Google maps street view, so I thought it's possible that there is a 4-bedroom house somewhere on that street). I knock on the door and ask if the property is managed by so-and-so and the occupant tells me that there is a scam going around where students out-of-state and out-of-country have been showing up, bags and everything, ready to move into their house. All of these kids lost their deposit obviously. The actual residents of the house and their landlord have tried contacting the police several times. There would be no victims for a while, but then it would start up again. Apparently the police are unable to locate the person because they might be outside the U.S. The resident suggested that we should contact the FBI.
I have not called the scammer out on it through our email or text-message exchanges, and he/she seems more pushy than usual to get me to sign the lease. I will let the FBI/IC3 instruct me on what steps I should take, and how I can best cooperate with them to resolve this issue. I went to the IC3 website and looked at the FAQ's. It seems like what I'm supposed to do is file a "complaint" and let them assign an agent to the case if they think it's valid. This seems tedious and I don't want this person to get away with what they have been doing for years.
I'm hoping this is just a case of investment fraud and not identity theft. Also, I'm wondering how he/she got my email address. I didn't post it on Roomster publicly, and only used it to register an account.
Is there anything else I can do?
Thanks for your help!
