Gumtree Flats to rent scam

DCFC79

The scam was reported on radio 1 news maybe earlier this year or late last year

chomsky_2

Thanks, I didn't know anything about this scam until we started looking for a flat, and we have never used Gumtree before. Glad I did a bit of research, that could have been an expensive mistake!

lady_wolfs_head

HAhahahahahaha:beer:
Did you get a reply????

I have done the same with scam emails and oddly enough they never reply, can't think why???


:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

chomsky wrote: »

I am new to MSE and as I was reading through the formus I thought I would post this so people don't get scammed! Me and my other half have been looking for flats and he almost fell for a Gumtree scam. He found an advert for a 1 bedroom flat complete with pictures of the furnished flat for only £400 a month. The Gumtree ad (which has now been taken down from the site) seemed legitimate other than the ludicrously cheap price and so he sent the landlady a message and below is the response from the scammer.


From: [EMAIL="cindy.water@live.com"]cindy.water@live.com[/EMAIL]
To: [EMAIL="XXXXX@hotmail.com"]XXXXX@hotmail.com[/EMAIL]
Subject: RE: Reply to your ad: Magnificent and lovely ONE Double bedroom flat
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:21:16 +0000

Thanks for the reply and the sincere interest you have in my flat. I spoke with my lawyer on phone just now concerning your stay in my flat and we both agreed to have you in my flat as long as you'll take good care of my flat as how it is. However, it is unfortunate that my past bitter experience of inviting people to come and view or reserve my flat without any form of confirmation of their financial ability and not keeping up to time as at when scheduled, has brought about great loss to me. I have traveled all the way from Ireland to take some interested candidates round my flat because that's where i work with M. Gould (S!!!!horpe) Ltd.

Some outside tenants do not have the money to pay the rent and yet they disturb the landlord to arrange a viewing with their friend or relative who are in Cardiff, also some do not meet up with the appointments which has led to the dismissal of some landlords in office by their employers.

Henceforth, my lawyer and i have decided to carry out a simple test on financial ability to pay for my rent before coming for viewing. I would not ask you to send your bank statement. At least 1 month rent and security deposit which is £ 400 which is refundable after your 1 month stay in my flat, would be required from you to transfer through Western union money transfer agent to your trusted friend or relative in Uk premises.

Once you have done this, scan the receipt to me and if you do not have scanner, you may write out the details on the receipt as i will send it to my lawyer to verify if it's truly genuine and available in your friend's custody, after verification, then we can proceed for the viewing and you can as well tell your friend or partner to pick up the money and also, i will refund back to you the cost of transfer when we meet.

I look forward to reading from you soon.

Regards
Mr/Mrs Water


Below is my reply to them, I replied as my boyfriend and thought I would have a little fun with it.

Dear Cindy,

many thanks for your response. I am sorry to hear of your plight concerning people's financial dishonesty (people can be such scammers right?) How very interesting that you work for M.Gould, I told my partner about this, as I informed her that we would have very respectable landlords and she couldn't seem to find an Ireland office for M.Gould, she even went to the trouble of phoning them up bless her, she is ever so paranoid and was informed that they have no Ireland office and indeed no employee under the name Cindy water, I assured the company obviously that this must be some sort of mistake and gave them your email address in order to sort the matter out. I'm sorry to say your employers seem most inefficient if they can't even recognise an employee's name.

Of course we will comply with your request for a deposit, yet again my other half insisted on passing this email on to our lawyers to make sure we are protected and our lawyer had the audacity to suggest that this was a fraudulent email and not to provide any personal information, as in his word's "no landlord would expect a deposit to be paid without a tenant even seeing the property." The cheek of the man! I informed him that it must be a real email and a real flat as you had attached a very nice picture of you and your husband. I certainly don't pay my lawyer to think for god sake, I am intelligent enough to spot a scam.

My idiot lawyer it seems is just as paranoid as my partner as he contacted the cyber crimes unit at South Wales Police and their head of department John Cherry has informed me that he is tracking the IP of your email address. I demanded that the police stop their investigation and pointed out that you are a sincere landlord and had even sent me pictures of the property and therefore it could not possibly be a scam.

In order to put my partners mind at rest could we have your lawyers contact details so that she can speak to him to put her poor mind at rest.

Kind regards,

N

As I was researching this I found that this is a really common scam and lot's of people have lost their money. I can see how people can be fooled as the gumtree ad my other half saw was very convincing. Hopefully the more people write about these scams though the more likely people will be wise to them.

chomsky_2

Yup, amazingly good old Cindy replied to me assuring us of her honesty!

Here's Cindy's reply:

Thanks for getting back to me. I wouldn't want you to get me wrong, the idea of making a confirmation of your financial ability is not only my idea, my lawyer and i decided to use that process and i can't violate my lawyer procedure. I am a God fearing woman and i am not after your money. I have my own work and i earn enough money for my family and also to help the less privilege.

However, i didn't want to collect any money from you as long as you have not sign a contract neither have i taken you round my flat. All what i request of you is to transfer the deposit to someone close to you through Western union money transfer agent , once you've done that, you get back to me with a scan copy of the transfer receipt so that i can forward it to my lawyer to confirm if the transfer is valid.

After the confirmation might have been made by my lawyer, i will ask you to tell you friend to pick up the money and schedule a convenient day for the viewing. If eventually you don't want to proceed with the rent, i promise to return the cost of the transfer without any deduction.You can call my husband for further discussion +447031824567

I look forward to reading from you soon.
Regards
Mr/Mrs Water

So a quick Google search revealed that the mobile number is on what seems to be a Japanese website, very odd, was going to ring but didn't want a massive phone bill so instead I sent her a reply which I will post.

P.s there was a generic couple type picture that she sent us claiming that it was a snap of her and the 'hubby'. Didn't take that long to track down the original picture, with some amusing results! Would like to post the pic here but as I am a new user cannot post links.

lady_wolfs_head

She must think you just came off the gumtree!!!

chomsky_2

Tell me about it, though people do fall for Gumtree flat scams, i was reading the gumtree forums and quite a few people have handed money over.

Seems like poor old Cindy is a bit oblivious to my sarcastic email. Having tracked down the pic of her and hubby I sent another email off.

Dear Cindy,

Of course you are honest I myself am I very good judge of character, I am also a man of god and can totally empathise. In fact my most favourite verse is Matthew 8:28-34
"When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. "What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"

I thought it sort of sounded like yobish hoodies of biblical times getting their ruddy !!!!!! kicked my god almighty. I just adore how god is loving and forgiving yet can also be badass when he needs to, don't you?

Anyway I digress; of course your solicitor is only doing his job. I did try and explain this to my solicitor who is quite insistent that he wants the name of your solicitor, his firm's name and his contact number as he is still bloody adamant that you are a con artist and that getting myself to transfer money to a friends account though a Western Union agent is "absurd" and that you would use the information given to somehow rob me of all my money. He said that's how "criminals" work. How outrageous and slanderous I told him, of course your not criminals, criminals don't use Gumtree, it's a website for nice people selling broken TV's and offering "night time hours only" type jobs.

The sod even went as far as to suggest that you would not keep your promise to return my hard earned money and the poor deluded fellow said that "business transactions are not founded on promises from people you have only dealt with via email. “Poor chap he is so untrusting, what an awful thing to say, of course you would return my money as you said you are not after my money and I always believe everything strangers tell me in emails, who on earth wouldn't?

To be honest my partner has not helped matters, she is in cahoots with the damn solicitor and continues in her paranoia bless her soul. In fact do you know she was on Google last night and found the picture of you and your husband that you had so kindly emailed us, on the Internet. I said well that's marvelous, obviously our prospective landlords are very important people to turn up in a Google images search. She became quite hysterical and showed me that your picture was on a sperm donors website in America, in fact here is the link.... (sorry folks can't post links as I am a new user but the pic is the couple on the American website sperm donors INC, if you Google ,it you'll find it.)

My other half seemed to believe that you had just copied this picture from this website and were fraudulently using it as part of some elaborate email scam. I assured here that you were just a nice well-travelled, probably infertile couple who obviously were on the lookout for some high quality sperm and there was nothing to worry about. There is nothing shameful in that, in fact I think you were most brave in putting your picture on a sperm donors website, that takes gumption my friend. Something my partner and idiot solicitor are obviously lacking.

To put my partners poor mind at rest I once again respectfully request that you send your lawyer's name, his firm and contact details so that my solicitor can speak to him. My rude solicitor keeps saying he doesn't wish to ring you "thieving scamming husband" on a mobile number and is requesting contact details for your lawyer. Also those bloody police officers that came round as part of their cyber crime investigation have taken the number you provided, not to worry though I’m sure they will give up when I send them a picture of you and your husband on a sperm donors website proving you are in fact a real couple. Your picture is on the Internet for Christ sake how could you not be a real couple? I sometimes think the country is going to the dogs with such a paranoid and deluded police force.

Kind regards,

N


Am now awaiting the next response (if there is one)

Dizzy_Ditzy

this is brilliant and I cant wait to see how far these people push it!

Michelle-Scamwarner

I'm Michelle (Site Moderator at scamwarners.com).

The scammer calling himself "Cindy Water" is actually writing from an internet cafe in Lagos Nigeria.

He goes by many other names, and some of them can be found listed at Scamwarners in the "Auctions and On-line selling" Forum

In this variation of 'Room to Rent scam' you are asked to send a Western Union payment to a family member to prove that you are financially sound and not a time waster.

Western Union Transfers can be picked up virtually anywhere in the world and with the minimum of identification. They are almost impossible to trace once the money has been collected, especially when it is collected from West Africa.

Not being able to post links , you can Google search " BBC Londoners still being conned in flat scams"

This shows how this scam works together with quotes from both Gumtree and Western Union Spokesmen.

Enfieldian

Yes Michelle, I think we gathered that...

This thread has moved on to scam baiting now dear.,,,,,

dark^knight

I also came across these on Auto Trader last year when I was looking for a car. I did write to Auto Trader but they didn't take them off.

It was so obvious that they were too good to be true, and the give-away was the picture asking you to email them for more information.

I even followed one up by creating a gmail account, and they reply back and ask you to make a Western Union transfer, and scan the receipt and send it to them.

It should be the responsibility of GumTree and AutoTrader etc. to make sure all the adverts are legitime.