Landlord Products / ServicesI received an email from a chap called Steve earlier, and he was wondering whether this rental accommodation application he received via email was genuine:
Hello,
Thanks so much for your email and its quite understanding.MY DAUGHTER WILL BE ARRIVING ON THE 23th of MARCH, i have gone thru the advert one more time and everything seems to be okay.The house details,location and location advantage seems okay by me….I would like to have the room.I would like you to know that i wont be able to come over to view the room due to my present location but every other things looks good.This is a little more about her.She is 22 yrs old very nice,caring,honest,kind responsible,hard-working clean,reliable and social.She like watching Movies,swimming and reading too….she is social, very passionate and i like to share ideas with others.She neither drink nor smoke,but dont mind living with those that do them. Concerning payment,I have contacted my client and he promised he will make out payment to you,he will be paying you in excess,cos he’s taking care of my daughters accommodation and travelling fees to the appartment location.He will be paying you £3700.
As soon as you get the cheque,pls deduct the cost of the room for 1 months plus any deposit and send the remaining balance,which would be for her flight expenses and her living allowance for the short period,The balance should be sent to my traveling agent whose information i would give to you as soon as you recieve payment.
I want you to see this as a favour you’ll be willing to do for a tenant i can compensate you an amount of £50 extra for the help you will be rendering. As soon as she get there,i will make preparations for the remaining months, including all bills.Pls i want you to do this for me in good faith.if you comply,do not hesitate to provide me with these information.
NAME YOU WANT THE PAYMENT TO BE WRITTEN ON:
ADDRESS YOU WANT THE PAYMENT SENT TOO:
PHONE NUMBER:(Home,Work and Cell):
I would be very glad if you can be of a helping hand and hope to read back from you soonest .
Best Regards.Note: That my daugther is just wanting to apply for a post graduate degree programme once she gets to UK but all we need now is just her accommodation and i promise to pay everything a father on her behalf..Pls do get back to me with your details if my payment terms is okay by you and as for the signing of contract my daugther will do that as soon as she arrived to Uk.. Please feel free to contact me.
This email is DEFINITELY a blatant scam. I’ve received several before, all of which were very similar to the one above. I’m not entirely sure what the scam is, but there’s certainly ill intent.
Does anyone know what the actual scam is? If not, anyone care to venture a guess? I recon it involves rope, Vaseline and a guy with a very large penis.
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Yes I know this scam.
Basically when you write a cheque to someone it will take a certain time to clear. Most high street banks will credit your account with the cheque before it had fully cleared basically loaning you the money until the cheque has fully cleared.
Make no mistake - the cheque will either be from a closed account or will bounce. But the money will appear in your account after a few days so the cheque appears to have cleared.
Then you sent the 'remaining balance' of the outsatnding amount to the scammer who cashes the cheque.
A few days later the clearing house or bank will realise that the cheque was fraudulent and take the money back - meaning you have just given the 'remainder' amount to the scammer.
Its worse if someone does it when buying something eg a car because you lose the car and this overage amount which you return to the 'buyer' with one of your cheques.
If someone offers to pay more than you are asking and that you return the balance one way or another it IS ALWAYS A SCAM.