I am posting my Nephews house in Colorado on Craigslist for sale and just recently to be rented. I received an email from a person and this is it:
Hello there,
Am writing you regarding the property you placed for rent on craigslist.I have interest in renting it and will like to know some information regarding the property. Total amount needed for Move-In including deposit. I would love to see some additional pictures of the interior.When is the ideal Move in date. Would love to rent the property asap. Kindly get back to me with the answer so that we could proceed from there. Waiting for your response asap.
That was the first response, and now this is the second response:
Thank you for responding, its good reading from you again and I am highly impressed with the information in the listing. I don't have any question at the moment. I wanna go ahead in renting the place from you. I will be coming with my wife and we are relocating from UK. I work as a Researcher for my company and here is my employer's website . I am coming to the area to carry out some research. My Company will be responsible for the monthly rent and security deposit. I will sign the lease agreement in person and will be signing a year lease as soon as i get to the States. We will be moving to the States on November the 15th and i want the lease to start same date because We will be moving into the property directly. Kindly get the ad off from all listing because am taking the property for sure.
In the meantime, I will like to secure the property asap so that i can attend to other important things for our move to the Country. In order to proceed with payment, I will need the following information so that we can continue from there.
(1) FULL NAME AS IT WILL BE ON CHECK.
(2) MAILING ADDRESS.
(3) CELL NUMBER AND ALTERNATIVE NUMBER.
Kindly get back to me with the above information and incase of any question, please contact me on my phone number (0044)7827429670. Await your response asap.
I am just very concerned that this is a very BIG HOAX. I have received so many emails from the UK that are big hoexes(sp)

What do you all think?

My Nephew is going to go ahead with it. He says the worst thing that can happen is that he will have to kick the people out of his house. I did go to the website they mentioned and it seems very legit, but they don't have anyway to contact anyone.

Sandi,
It does seem odd.
Too good to be true.

Is the house FULLY INSURED ????
Not to scare you but IMO it sounds like they are casing the house through the pics.
Warn the neighbors to be aware that the house is empty.

If this man wants his house so badly then I am sure he would be happy to provide a few details for your nephew such as........................
contact no for work in UK
checkable refrences faxed to your nephew
current rental agents verbal confirmation
happy snap so your nephew can "meet them at the airport" and know what he looks like
local branch of work contact no

If this is legit then he will be happy to provide proof of legitimacy.
You could also call the ph no at random times to see if they are legit.

Good luck.
Keep us posted.

Tricia.

Personally, if I had ANY concerns, I just wouldnt fool with it. A weight will lift from your shoulders. Surely you can find a renter from at least in the states. I wouldnt do it. I can not believe that if an employer would be sending a valuable employee to the states and paying his way that they wouldnt go thru a real estate agency. Not resort to craigs list which we all know can be chancey on anything.

My Ex (the dumb one from last year) just got a friend of his hooped with a deal like this. A girl wrote from another country about a company transfer and that her company would be paying rent and blah blah blah. Got him to send pictures etc etc etc and then she never showed up.

I think the reason they didn't try to steal anything is that they found out there was an additional roommate.

I ran into my Ex's friend at school and he was stuck paying ALL of the rent and utilities and telling me how he couldn't really afford it.

Don't do it!

Be very careful. My daughter had an add on CL for a roomate. She got a reply from someone in the UK. It is a scam. They are nigerians. She got phone calls, and finally they sent her a check. the girl said she was going to send Jen all of her money in a cashiers check, and she was to keep it until she arrived. She got a cashiers check for thousands of dollars, and the envelope it was in was send from Boondocks Iowa. Jen called the bank and the police, and was told this one the money scam, where you cash the check, they have your money, and your bank comes back at you for the bad cashiers check. BE VERY CAREFUL. I could go on and on about the phone calls and emails she received.

Hi Sandi,

It seems to me that this is some sort of hoax. My guess is after you provide them the info they requested and communicate a bit more; building a level of trust; this person will then say they want to send you a money order or some sort of certified funds. They may ask you to cash it and deposit it into an account for them, keeping a part of it for yourself. The MO or check will be bogus, and then you can be charged with fraud.

We have seen many similar things in the Grand Jury over the past three months. Bottom line, if it seems too good to be true, it likely is. IF they are legit, they will come to the states and THEN give cash when they sign the lease.

Just my opinion, but I wouldn't have any part of it.

Hugs,
J

Yes I have to agree with all the posts. it sounds like a scam to me and ill say it again Please be very careful. I have had some emails like that also .

If they want to rent it, why do THEY need YOUR banking information??????

SCAM SCAM SCAM!!!! They can send a cashier's check if they are serious, will give it time to clear to make sure it is legit......they don't need YOUR information, you need theirs!!!

I talked to my nephew and his Mom. They both feel it might be a hoax, but they have decided to follow it thru and see what happens. They said they are just going to wait for the money and be very careful about that part. Make sure everything clears and all of that.
I am glad I am not the one doing this, lets just say I wouldn't do it.

they don't want banking info, just the person's name to write on the check..

yeah, I would either do what Tricia says and check references and work numbers or just find someone else closer. If you turn them down the worst that can happen is that they will send you nasty email/viruses if it is a hoax, and then you can always block them.

Please advise your nephew and his mom that if they do go through with this, when the hoax comes to play there will be no legal recourse for getting money back or having the thieves caught. It is next to impossible to trace them down, and the laws are lax in prosecution IF they can even be found.

If they are going to go through with this I would strongly advise them to not give any information about bank accounts or anything like that. Have them insist on a postal money order and then have it verified before they even try to cash it so that they can't get in trouble with the law, Also if they are asked if they would deposit other money in another account refuse it.

Before they sign any papers I would have cash, first and last and a BIG deposit.

I would also ask for their immidiate supervisors name and the owner of the companies name and contact information who they work for and see if its on the up and up. Its possible its true, but very doubtful...sound and feels like a scam to me as well.

I agree with what everyone else says, for a couple of reasons that have not been mentioned. First of all, the way the emails are worded, it doesn't sound like english is this person's first language. Of course there are many people in the UK who aren't british natives, but that makes me suspicious. As far as the phone number goes, that could be a legit cell number because they all begin with 17 or 07 and you drop the 1 or 0 off before dialing from the US...but they don't have the correct country code...it's actually 44 or 044...to dial from here you also have to include the US country code which is 011. Why don't you try calling them, or have them call you. My husband is from England so I've called many times....lol. I'm curious...what part of England do they say they are in? Well never mind trying to call them cuz I just tried the number and it's not a good number...or at least it's not one that can be called from here...so I'd be sure to have them call your nephew before he does anything. (lol...I'm so nosey..I just wanted to see if someone would answer and what sort of accent they had...then was gonna hang up...hehehe)

Sandy

http://berealct.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/r...rget-landlords/

Please try this website. I wouldn't be so pushy about this, but my daughter got as far as to receive a check for thousands of dollars in a cashiers check that was bogus. And I hate to see these scams hurt people.
Nancy

Oh be very careful, this is definately a scam. I had a similar thing happen to me but with a bird. I ended up researching scams on these people and sure enough. Do a search for uk scams on rent houses and see what you come up with. I bet you will find something.

Thank you. I am forwarding this to my Sister in Law and my Nephew.
Yep it sounds exactly like all of those..

I got an e-mail like that about a horse we had for sale. I was very suspicious about it so I never even answered it. I was right. The site I posted the horse for sale on came out whith a warning about that person running scams. He claimed he was from Spain when his e-mails came from a computer in Nigeria. I'm glad I didn't respond.

If I were you. I'd just write him back and say something like "Sorry, my nephew rented the house to a policeman before I could give him your info"

I called my SIL and told her I forwarded the email and just told her it was a scam. I posted the house yesterday on Craigslist again in case anybody ELSE was interested. I knew yesterday that it was a scam, but now I definitely know for sure.
My SIL had sent an email to this person requesting some information and I told her that she will probably never hear from them again. Since I have the person's email, I am going to copy and paste something and send it to them and catch them at their own game, but I know that I will not hear back. These kind of people make me sick

We had cases like this here in Canada too. A person put an ad for a Harley motorcycle on the internet.
He gets a response and the "buyer" pays a lot more than the asking price with a check. He asked for the extra money to be refunded to him. By the time the seller realizes that the check was fake, it is too late. He lost the motorcycle too....
I hope this fraud can be prevented in this case..

Sigrid

This is what "should" be done. I didn't read any of the responses because I'm hopped up on espresso, and am in no mood to be patient. The renters need to secure 50% of the deposit immediately to secure the house. Then when the company pays the deposit and rent the money they payed will be refunded.

My aunt and uncle have a few rent houses, and they've been told every story in the book, but none of their renters have ever been like "these photos look great when can we move in".

Since you've figured out its a scam, we need to figure out who to report it to because there are ways of tracking these people down...

Any one have that info...

I will definitely post it, the email on the RIP OFF REPORT and also to the BBB online. Also I remember when I lived in Deer Park and we were selling our Big Screen TV and I had someone from TX inquiring about it. I thought that was very odd. They were going to do this and that and all I had to do was put it on a Truck. Well I checked out Craigslist in TX, all of the cities listed and there were tons of BIG SCREENS for sale. So I sent an email to them asking them why they wanted my TV since they could buy locally. Ah Ha, they never replied....

There is a federal agency that you can also report it to, but for the life of me I can't remember what the name of it is.