Apartment Scam

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Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:45 pm

I am looking to rent an apartment and I emailed for info to a listing on Craigslist. I got this today. I think it's a total scam.

Quote:

Hello,

Thanks for your response and interest in my apartment,my name is Eddy XXXX am 45 years with my wife and a lovely daughter. The Apartment is still available for rent starting from now.

The Apartment is located below.

Brooklyn, NY
USA

Included in Rent:
Cable Television
Electricity
Internet Access
Water/Sewer
Gas
Parking

Appliances:
Dryer
Electric Stove
Fridge
Washer
Freezer

The rent is $1300 per month with a damage deposit of $700 and that include the utilities and it'son the 3rd floor of the building and it has an elevator. I am looking for responsible tenants that is going to take care of the apt as if were is own and will be willing to make the house clean as we left it. Actually my reason for wanting to rent the apt is because i was transfered by my company to our head quarters in North Carolina where i currently reside now with my family, and won't be coming to the house, and leaving the apt for that long without cleaning or someone taking care of it is very bad so i decided to rent it out for a short or long term lease depending on the person who wants to rent it. So since i will not be around to show the the apt i will like you to drive down there to take a look at the exterior of the apt and for the interior i will email you the pictures for you to see how wonderful it looks. I am with the keys and the necessary document meant for the apt and the reason is that i tried to find an agent to help me handle the rent but couldn't see a trustworthy agent that was why i decided to come along with the key's and documents and handle the rent myself. I will like you to get back to me on how you can keep my apt clean if i should rent it out to you and your experience with renting an apt.

I look forward to hearing from you so that i would send the rental application form to fill out and discuss on how to get the house for rent, also i will like to know when you are ready to rent the apt because the apt is available now.

Regards.

Eddy.

TOTAL SCAM OR WHAT? (Or has this forum made me completely paranoid. Wink

)

Here are the red flags that went off for me:
-located in different state (will probably want me to WU some money to him. Rolling Eyes

)
-he wrote the address as Brooklyn, NY USA. This subtle detail tells me he's NOT in the US.
-he tells me he's 45 years old and with his wife and lovely daughter (who cares?)
-the deposit is way too low (and who calls it a "damage" deposit?)--maybe he's not a greedy mugu, $2000 total, what a nice round amount
-includes cable and parking for $1300/month in NYC--yeah Rolling Eyes

-overly concerned about me keeping it clean (he's trying to make me believe it's his apt. Laughing

)
-also includes water/sewer (i'm glad it includes the sewer, otherwise, it'd be messy Shocked

)
-the wording used seems like a foreigner would write it

Btw, I tried tracing his IP (he used yahoo), it came back to Sunnyvale, California. Who knows.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Yes, that's a fairly typical scam reply.

You are looking at the wrong IP address in the headers, the Sunnyvale IP is the Yahoo server address, please post the full email headers for us to view.

Although, from where he says "am 45", I would hazard a good guess at that being written by an African, I see that a lot in emails, it's always "am" this, or "am" that, without an "I" preceding it as in "I am".

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:11 pm

Not that it's needed, but I back up what Sp said. It's a typical craigslist apartment scam.

The English is appalling, which sets off alarm bells. And to add to that, have a look at his proper IP.... (As SP says, I think you have the wrong one, please post the header and we'll know better).

My gut feeling is that this guy is in West Africa.

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:10 pm

Here is the full header:

Quote:

Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from hrndva-mxlb.mail.rr.com ([10.128.255.23])
by hrndva-imta06.mail.rr.com with ESMTP
id <20080418152242.SBKU16536.
[email protected]>
for <xxxxxx>; Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:22:42 +0000
X-IronPort: hrndva-mx20.mail.rr.com 1659520008
X-RR-Connecting-IP: 98.136.45.21
Received: from n74a.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com ([98.136.45.21])
by hrndva-mxlb.mail.rr.com with SMTP; 18 Apr 2008 15:22:42 +0000
Received: from [216.252.122.217] by n74.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 18 Apr 2008 15:22:41 -0000
Received: from [69.147.65.154] by t2.bullet.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 18 Apr 2008 15:22:41 -0000
Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp402.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 18 Apr 2008 15:22:41 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: [email protected]
Received: (qmail 54492 invoked by uid 60001); 18 Apr 2008 15:22:41 -0000

DomainKey-Signature: Deleted - Blowout

Received: from [62.56.147.219] by web46011.mail.sp1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:22:41 PDT
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:22:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Brooklyn
To: E
In-Reply-To: <000f01c8a0e0$88fe8840$6501a8c0@YOR85C59>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-22829851-1208532161=:52782"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

--0-22829851-1208532161=:52782
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:18 pm

He's using ItalSat, which makes him likely to be in North Africa, or at least in the region. Of course he could be elsewhere.... but I'd bet on him being in somewhere in N Africa or W Africa.

Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:43 am

Quote:

I look forward to hearing from you so that i would send the rental application form to fill...

I'd be that's good for a few laughs. Let him send it. Laughing

Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:34 pm

Maybe I should send him my home owner rental application to see if he qualifies to rent me an apartment. Wink

Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:38 pm

He forgot all about the rental application and just wants the money now.

Earlier, he sent me 6 pictures of the interior of the apartment. Two things I noticed is that the apartment seems to be a first floor but the pics show differently. Also, they seem to be pictures of about 3 different apartments. Laughing

Here's his latest message:

Quote:

Hello XXXX,

Thanks for your swift reply, it shows how interested you are in the renting the apt. Well for us to make things easier safer and faster, i would prefer you sending the deposit using Money Gram and if you will be able to send it today, i can aswell ship the key's out today so that first thing tomorrow morning it will be delivered to you. So if you are ready to proceed email me back with your mailing address where the key's will be shipped and i will also email you with the information where the money will be sent.

I await your response asap.

Regards.

E--y.

Faster safer and easier for who? Rolling Eyes

Any ideas how I can bait this ahole but I'm still using my real email address. How can I switch now?

Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:06 pm

I stepped into one of these. I just emailed from actual address and said I found a place, waited a few hours and emailed interest from a baiting addy. Don't think the lad ever made the connection.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 2

There's a website exclusively dedicated to exposing the Craigslist apartment scam: http://chicaneryconsscams.blogspot.com

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 23 May 2008 Posts: 1

and here's what he replied:

------------------------------------
Hello
Thanks for your qiuck response.The apartment is still avaiable for $1000.I inherited the apartment from my late
father.I lived in the apartment with my wife susan, but presently now i
am in LONDON,United Kingdom and i will reside here
for some time due to my current assignment..I just need someone with an open heart,love and clean heart to occupy the apartment and put all my worries off concerning
the maintenance of the apartment for, since i am not residing there for sometime now.
Pls i want you to note that,i am a kind and honest man and also i spent a lot on my property that i want to give you for rent,so i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this house and want you to treat it as your own,is that taken,it is not the money that is the main problem that is why is cheap but want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i come for a check up.I also want you to let me have trust in you as i always stand on my word.
the features of my apartment are:
Refrigerator Dishwasher
Range Garbage disposal
Washer/dryer
Hardwood floors
Ceramic tile Carpet
Living room Dining room
Den/study Unfinished basement
Air conditioning Walk-in-closets
Cable ready High speed internet
Skylights Heat
Deck/Patio Fence
Sprinkler 2 garage parking spaces
Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the
document and the key to you or come and see you in person,please we are giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words,you know that,we have not
see yet and only putting everything into Gods hand,so please do not
let us down in this our property and God bless you more as you do this.

Regards

Thanks and God Bless you.

========================================

Funny How he can live in many places at once., huh?..OH and BTW, if u look at the Dallas appraisal district online it shows who actually owns the HOUSE and where THEY reside..only thing they that matched is that it is owned by the "estate" of the previous owner. and NOT EVEN CLOSE to the real last name. and another thing its a HOUSE and NOT an apartment...
You'd think they would actually put a little research into the scams they are gonna pull..WOuldnt ya?

I did reply to him telling him I would like to see the interior of the property TODAY before I made my decision since I had CASH in hand.. [color=red]text HEHE!! (wink)
HeHe!.....I just wanted to see how they would try and avoid that....we'll see what happens next and I'll keep ya posted.

------------------------=
--------------------------------=====
[color=blue]here are the headers from his reply......what other information can u tell from this?

[98.136.45.21]
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Authentication-Results: mta541.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=yahoo.com; domainkeys=pass (ok)
Received: from 98.136.45.21 (HELO n74a.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com) (98.136.45.21) by mta541.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 23 May 2008 12:12:12 -0700
Received: from [216.252.122.219] by n74.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 23 May 2008 19:12:07 -0000
Received: from [69.147.65.156] by t4.bullet.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 23 May 2008 19:12:07 -0000
Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp404.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 23 May 2008 19:12:07 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: [email protected]
Received: (qmail 64979 invoked by uid 60001); 23 May 2008 19:12:06 -0000

DomainKey-Signature: Deleted - Blowout Evil or Very Mad

Received: from [217.194.157.45] by web45913.mail.sp1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 23 May 2008 12:12:06 PDT
X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.7.185
Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 12:12:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Send an Instant Message "Mr.dickson williams" <[email protected]>
Reply-to: [email protected]
Subject: Re: 8919 Vista Gate
To: [email protected]>
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1701867405-1211569926=:63209"
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Length: 5151

Adamu's soulmate Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 337

Oh a ceramic tile carpet thats novel Surprised

Baiting Guru Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 2922

@Aphroditeslove-yours is from Bafoussam in Cameroon.