Rental scam

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Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:37 am

My family owns a small vacation home that we (try to) rent out to tourists. This just came into our booking account. The IP resolves to Nigeria and it�s clearly going to be a check mule/overpayment scam.

Quote:

Hello,

I would like to book 4 single rooms in your hotel for 4 members of HEALTH ACTION INTERNATIONAL UK Branch.This is because of the Healthcare Campaign Programme they shall be
conducting in your country.The period for the reservation should be between 4 - 10th of October,2007 i.e 6nights period.
so confirm my reservation request and
forward to me the rates and total cost for the reservation including the local tax and breakfast.
N:B= 4 rooms x 4 persons x 6 nights between 4 - 10/10/2007

Warm regards,
Christopher Milton
14 Hever Court Road,Singlewell,
Gravesend, Kent, DA12 5UQ,
Uk.

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Thought I�d wait a few days then reply from a different name/address to try and drag this out for as long as I can as a kind of diversion from my other long-term baits. I found a little bit of info on rental scams using the search button, but wonder if anyone else has ever taken a proper stab at these guys. As it is now, I see the bait burning out pretty quick if I just go premium and have him send a check to one of the drop boxes. Unlike a job scam, there won�t be any inherent premise of sending more checks that I could use to drag this out for longer. Any thoughts?

Or indeed, does anyone have some information on what else is being done to fight the rental scams? The site we advertise our (real) property on has some warnings to owners, but I�m sure this kind of thing succeeds all the time.

Oh, and I guess even if the bait does burn out, it should still be fun for a little while making up details of my imaginary hotel and getting my own back asking the "client" endless questions about their booking requirements, flight plans, visa information, and so on instead of the other way around. Twisted Evil

(Somehow, I expect he�ll still be interested even after I fess up to the extensive plumbing work that needs to be done...)

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:56 am

Mr G--

It's a credit card scam, going by past history. They send these out routinely in the hope some hotel/motel/inn owner will bite.

Note that your lad--'Christopher Milton' and his party intend to stay for 6 days but are only concerned about breakfast, no other meal of the day..

Make up an expensive breakfast menu--2 slices of toast and jelly $10, 2 eggs and bacon $25. (coffee included--1 free refill)..

And ask him what he intends to do about the other 2 meals of the day--and brunch too.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:00 am

It is quite easy to see how someone could fall for a scam like this.

Master Baiter Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 108

The UK online phone directory ( www.bt.com ) lists a "G E Milton" at that address.
The phone number is there if you want to follow it up...or even warn the guy if there could be identity fraud?

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:33 am

Hi Julian--

And great work by you there. I'm here in The Colonies so can only research USA/Canadian addresses/phone #s, but thanx indeed for that link.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:03 pm

There's an amusing bait of a rental scammer on Scamorama:

http://www.scamorama.com/noogie_favour.html

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:05 am

Hi yastreb^

Knew you'd know it, thanx for the link--you beat me to it.

All Hail Her Gothness Eliza! Wink

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 577

@ Mr. Green
I had one a few months ago for a property I had for rent. I responded from a new email account and continued from there. The scammer used gmail - happy to provide the email addy - I suspect a Vlad due to syntax, etc.

It was a check scam - overpayment, return the rest. Vlad claimed to send 3 checks - none of which ever arrived at the destination. I rented to a cash tenant......

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:51 am

Hello Philo^

You obviously added an e-mail address in your local newspaper ad section posted by you--....I do not know what paper, and not asking---but keep in mind that most newspapers--even of the small-town-variety--have links to bigger circulated ones that go out on the w-w net for all to peruse. A potential viewer audience of millions.

And harvesting email addys from want-ads is what the lads do with the fake-check/money-order scams. Standard mugu stuff.

But when they send out more-sophisticated scams involving 6 or 7 of them staying at your hotel for a week or so---It's scamplastic. There is a credit card involved somewhere in it.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:39 am

Hi all, thanks for your replies.

@ yastreb, that was a great link you provided. I enjoyed reading the hotel bait very much. I think the baiter got a bit lucky with the mugu, but fabulous work nonetheless and it has given me loads of good ideas. This is going to be fun! Thanks.

@ Philo Kvetch, you have pm.

Any other ideas on where to find more hotel/villa scammers would also be very welcome. Will see where this goes, but to get the most out of this bait (or almost any other...), it would be nice to start with at least a handful of lads trying to run similar scripts. Could always go fishing with an ASEM, but I�d like to keep this simple. If anyone else has some specific leads on this variation of an overpayment scam please let me know.

[bing] Bellhop!

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:33 am

Hello Mr G again--

You should indeed acquaint yourself with our comrades at scamorama.com---look it all over, especially the hyena pix. The posters there have the same goal as we do, all great in what they do--and maybe some cross-posting here too as well. Laughing