...you can't believe anyone would fall for them. Nevertheless...
Some guy is renting my apartment out to students for €400 per month. And if you send him two months rent in advance, in cash, he will send you the keys to my house by return.
It started last Friday, when my wife received a strange phone call at work from a real-estate agent who wanted to ask details of our rental apartment. My wife explained that our apartment isn't for rent, though it had been for sale recently, but we had taken it off the market because nobody was willing to fork out the €985k we were looking for.
He said "and now you want to rent it for €400?"
"No," said my wife, "we are not looking to rent it at all, but even if we were, it would be for about 10X that amount."
"Well that's far too much for my client, on his student budget."
"Well yeah, it would be."
Then yesterday I get home and there had been 27 phone calls made to our home phone. Which is weird because we absolutely never use the land-line, and nobody who knows us ever calls us on it.
Five minutes later the phone rings, and the story starts to unfold. This was the worried mom of a kid who had found our apartment on a student accommodation website and was excitedly getting ready to send the money to the agent - a certain Mr. Armstrong. She saw the address, realised it was a reasonably nice location and at that level of rent, she smelled a rat. It turns out our address is listed with a series of photos that are clearly nice but absolutely not of our place, and a p.o. box address of the 'agent' a Mr. Armstrong.
It seems like a straight forward scam. You list a property you don't own, ask for €800 for the keys, send keys out to every kid gullible enough to believe the story, and then clear-off before your victims discover the keys don't work next September.
But then why did Armstrong list my real name and our real phone number in the apartment details? I can't figure it out at all.
It's doing my head in.
Full Version: Some scams are so simplistic...
There was piece on this issue in the paper last week, it would seem that the scam artists are Nigerians operating from or through London.
QUOTE (The_Purple_Cow @ Jun 30 2009, 02:09 PM) 
...you can't believe anyone would fall for them. Nevertheless...
Some guy is renting my apartment out to students for €400 per month. And if you send him two months rent in advance, in cash, he will send you the keys to my house by return.
It started last Friday, when my wife received a strange phone call at work from a real-estate agent who wanted to ask details of our rental apartment. My wife explained that our apartment isn't for rent, though it had been for sale recently, but we had taken it off the market because nobody was willing to fork out the €985k we were looking for.
He said "and now you want to rent it for €400?"
"No," said my wife, "we are not looking to rent it at all, but even if we were, it would be for about 10X that amount."
"Well that's far too much for my client, on his student budget."
"Well yeah, it would be."
Then yesterday I get home and there had been 27 phone calls made to our home phone. Which is weird because we absolutely never use the land-line, and nobody who knows us ever calls us on it.
Five minutes later the phone rings, and the story starts to unfold. This was the worried mom of a kid who had found our apartment on a student accommodation website and was excitedly getting ready to send the money to the agent - a certain Mr. Armstrong. She saw the address, realised it was a reasonably nice location and at that level of rent, she smelled a rat. It turns out our address is listed with a series of photos that are clearly nice but absolutely not of our place, and a p.o. box address of the 'agent' a Mr. Armstrong.
It seems like a straight forward scam. You list a property you don't own, ask for €800 for the keys, send keys out to every kid gullible enough to believe the story, and then clear-off before your victims discover the keys don't work next September.
But then why did Armstrong list my real name and our real phone number in the apartment details? I can't figure it out at all.
It's doing my head in.
Some guy is renting my apartment out to students for €400 per month. And if you send him two months rent in advance, in cash, he will send you the keys to my house by return.
It started last Friday, when my wife received a strange phone call at work from a real-estate agent who wanted to ask details of our rental apartment. My wife explained that our apartment isn't for rent, though it had been for sale recently, but we had taken it off the market because nobody was willing to fork out the €985k we were looking for.
He said "and now you want to rent it for €400?"
"No," said my wife, "we are not looking to rent it at all, but even if we were, it would be for about 10X that amount."
"Well that's far too much for my client, on his student budget."
"Well yeah, it would be."
Then yesterday I get home and there had been 27 phone calls made to our home phone. Which is weird because we absolutely never use the land-line, and nobody who knows us ever calls us on it.
Five minutes later the phone rings, and the story starts to unfold. This was the worried mom of a kid who had found our apartment on a student accommodation website and was excitedly getting ready to send the money to the agent - a certain Mr. Armstrong. She saw the address, realised it was a reasonably nice location and at that level of rent, she smelled a rat. It turns out our address is listed with a series of photos that are clearly nice but absolutely not of our place, and a p.o. box address of the 'agent' a Mr. Armstrong.
It seems like a straight forward scam. You list a property you don't own, ask for €800 for the keys, send keys out to every kid gullible enough to believe the story, and then clear-off before your victims discover the keys don't work next September.
But then why did Armstrong list my real name and our real phone number in the apartment details? I can't figure it out at all.
It's doing my head in.
Do you have an actual listing? Can yu call police or some kind of inspection?
A variation of the Western Union scam? Freaky...
QUOTE
Do you have an actual listing? Can yu call police or some kind of inspection?
Yes, the mother I spoke to has been to see her local Police in Haarlem.
No new phone calls yesterday as the listing has been removed.
**
Another thing that occured to me, how did this Armstrong guy even find our real name and phone number? They were not shown on the 'House for Sale' listing on Funda.
Unless there is some mechanism where you can find a name and phone number working back from an address.
QUOTE (The_Purple_Cow @ Jul 1 2009, 10:56 AM)
Yes, the mother I spoke to has been to see her local Police in Haarlem.
No new phone calls yesterday as the listing has been removed.
**
Another thing that occured to me, how did this Armstrong guy even find our real name and phone number? They were not shown on the 'House for Sale' listing on Funda.
Unless there is some mechanism where you can find a name and phone number working back from an address.
No new phone calls yesterday as the listing has been removed.
**
Another thing that occured to me, how did this Armstrong guy even find our real name and phone number? They were not shown on the 'House for Sale' listing on Funda.
Unless there is some mechanism where you can find a name and phone number working back from an address.
Let's just hope he can't do anything else with that information...
http://www.gevonden.cc/telefoongids.php is one way to go about it.
QUOTE (The_Purple_Cow @ Jun 30 2009, 02:09 PM)
...you can't believe anyone would fall for them. Nevertheless...
Some guy is renting my apartment out to students for €400 per month. And if you send him two months rent in advance, in cash, he will send you the keys to my house by return.
It started last Friday, when my wife received a strange phone call at work from a real-estate agent who wanted to ask details of our rental apartment. My wife explained that our apartment isn't for rent, though it had been for sale recently, but we had taken it off the market because nobody was willing to fork out the €985k we were looking for.
He said "and now you want to rent it for €400?"
"No," said my wife, "we are not looking to rent it at all, but even if we were, it would be for about 10X that amount."
"Well that's far too much for my client, on his student budget."
"Well yeah, it would be."
Then yesterday I get home and there had been 27 phone calls made to our home phone. Which is weird because we absolutely never use the land-line, and nobody who knows us ever calls us on it.
Five minutes later the phone rings, and the story starts to unfold. This was the worried mom of a kid who had found our apartment on a student accommodation website and was excitedly getting ready to send the money to the agent - a certain Mr. Armstrong. She saw the address, realised it was a reasonably nice location and at that level of rent, she smelled a rat. It turns out our address is listed with a series of photos that are clearly nice but absolutely not of our place, and a p.o. box address of the 'agent' a Mr. Armstrong.
It seems like a straight forward scam. You list a property you don't own, ask for €800 for the keys, send keys out to every kid gullible enough to believe the story, and then clear-off before your victims discover the keys don't work next September.
But then why did Armstrong list my real name and our real phone number in the apartment details? I can't figure it out at all.
It's doing my head in.
Some guy is renting my apartment out to students for €400 per month. And if you send him two months rent in advance, in cash, he will send you the keys to my house by return.
It started last Friday, when my wife received a strange phone call at work from a real-estate agent who wanted to ask details of our rental apartment. My wife explained that our apartment isn't for rent, though it had been for sale recently, but we had taken it off the market because nobody was willing to fork out the €985k we were looking for.
He said "and now you want to rent it for €400?"
"No," said my wife, "we are not looking to rent it at all, but even if we were, it would be for about 10X that amount."
"Well that's far too much for my client, on his student budget."
"Well yeah, it would be."
Then yesterday I get home and there had been 27 phone calls made to our home phone. Which is weird because we absolutely never use the land-line, and nobody who knows us ever calls us on it.
Five minutes later the phone rings, and the story starts to unfold. This was the worried mom of a kid who had found our apartment on a student accommodation website and was excitedly getting ready to send the money to the agent - a certain Mr. Armstrong. She saw the address, realised it was a reasonably nice location and at that level of rent, she smelled a rat. It turns out our address is listed with a series of photos that are clearly nice but absolutely not of our place, and a p.o. box address of the 'agent' a Mr. Armstrong.
It seems like a straight forward scam. You list a property you don't own, ask for €800 for the keys, send keys out to every kid gullible enough to believe the story, and then clear-off before your victims discover the keys don't work next September.
But then why did Armstrong list my real name and our real phone number in the apartment details? I can't figure it out at all.
It's doing my head in.
A good way to make an extra bit of dosh. It's been happening for a long while in London already. Many people have lost an incredible amount of money falling for this...
QUOTE (cloggieking @ Jul 1 2009, 11:46 AM)
http://www.gevonden.cc/telefoongids.php is one way to go about it.
Ah, thank goodness, none of our details come up...
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