Is it a rental scam?

Hello,

I am french and I plan to stay 6 months in London. I found an ad on gumtree and she agreed that i rent her studio. I want to be sure she is not a "scammer". She asked me that :

I would require my lawyer to prepare the tenancy agreement contract for you to go about and sign it if you're ok with term and condition but i will require the security deposit(£550) upfront after signing the contract so i can definitely hold and secure the property for you till when you arrive while the remaining a month rent(£500) will be paid when we meet in person for the viewing in London and probably your move in day.

I will need the following information to prepare the contract.

Name:

Current Address:

Sex:

Your move in date:

Your move out date:


Best Regards .

Hello picobrica and welcome to ScamWarners.

Yes, that is a scam.

The scammer is using very poor English, and is pretending to arrange the rental in a non-standard way.

Please do not send any money to this person.

If you are able to provide the header of this email (you can PM a member of the Support Team - somebody with a coloured name - if you are not sure how to do this), we might be able to tell you where this scammer is really writing from. It is unlikely to be from England - their writing is typical of someone living in West Africa.

I agree with Chris, it is a definate scam.

I just did a search on part of the email and the exact wording came up on another website in the search results, unfortunately clicking on the link does not take me to the page I was hoping for but it does show that the exact wording as you received has been posted elsewhere.

Eviter les arnaques aux logements : Departure Forum - Guide for ...14 May 2010 ... "I would require my lawyer to prepare the tenancy agreement contract for you to go about and sign it if you're ok with term and condition ...
http: //www. easyexpat.com/.../eviter-les-arnaques-aux-logements-t22488.html - 2 hours ago

Link has been disabled, it doesn't work anyway