House Sellers Beware

sweven

I'm selling my house at the moment, and as well as advertising it on the local solicitors property centre site, I created a webpage for it myself. I also followed some links from this site, and listed it on a number of free nation wide sites.

I've received the following email correspondence. I'm 99 and a large bit % sure it's a con, probably along the lines of one I've read about recently where sellers of items receive Western Union money orders for a sum of money, some of which they are to pass on to a third party. The seller banks the money order, sends on the cheque and then finds the money order isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Correspondence added below.

sweven

Received from 'Jimmy Brown' - at a Yahoo.com address

Hello Seller,
I will like to make the purchase of this ad and I want you to get abck to me with further details on the ad. I will like to know if there is any change with the update and the last price for the home. Also, I want you to include recent pictures in your response and made it clear if you are the owner. Thanks and God bless you.
Regards

sweven

Response by me

Hello

Lots of information about the house is available on.

***Edit by Board Guide: sorry, personal details should not be posted on this board.***


Please get in touch if you have any other questions.

sweven

Reply from Jimmy

Hello, Thanks for the mail, I will like to have your full contact details so that I could send it to my surveyor and accountant for further confirmation. According to my Surveyor, he says as soon as the contact information get to him that he will be able to schedule a flight and made an hotel bookings for his stay during the inspections and ractification of contract. Also, I will like to know if I can make any payment to ractify the contract with you. I will be needing your assistance over this transaction so that I could have a very good transaction with you and my Surveyor. I hope to hear from you all necessary details and also I am willing to send a payment of 1000 to you for the preparation of all the necessary document that you need to provide for this transaction, ensure you provide the name the name that the payment should be sent to. I hope to hear from you soonest, because I need this home for my living since I am currently transfer overthere for the correlation on our company's external affairs. Thanks and be blessed in his name.
Regards

sweven

This is the first time I've heard of the scam involving a house sale. Anyone think I should continue corresponding?

Outtathaway

I don't really think it is. But you could try and get them to continue correspondance via your solicitor?

YorkshireBoy

There was an article on BBC's Watchdog programme tonight re these "Nigerian" scams (recognised by all the "blessings!!!"). The article focussed on the "grooming" of the victim over a period of time to instill a feeling of ease.

It still amazes me that people get conned. Are they oblivious to the world around them? Do they not surf the 'net, watch TV, read teletext, read the papers, talk in the works canteen, pub, etc, etc, etc.

You can do 1 of 3 things...

1/ String him/her along (see grooming above) and see how long before they get fed up. Provided there's no direct link to yourself (eg phone numbers, home addresses etc), it could be good fun. I read part of an article on another web forum where the intended victim did just that and the saga ran to hundreds of posts! You could see the scammer trying all manner of tricks without actually being blatantly obvious about what he was doing. The intended victim even resorted to pigeon English (to copy the scammer's attempt at the written word) - it was absolutely hilarious.

2/ Cut him/her off by sending a final e-mail saying "sorry, house now sold".

3/ Get all your mates (how about the 37,000 on here?) to sign up for temporary e-mail addresses and bombard him/her with spam! - Only kidding with this one by the way!!

If you feel "safe", go for the first option and keep us all entertained with the dialogue!

mrwibble

This one looks potentially nasty although the language is just a variant on the usual 419 Ebay / missing millions scams ... I'm sure they will tweak them soon as I can't believe anyone will believe that a surveyor needs to book a flight .... suspect the surveyor will be either the sender or his "associates" (plus multiple chums with baseball bats) - "surveying" your household goods.

Looking at it from a crime-writing perspective this could be a good plot .... "associates" take over house and bump off owner to run scams / terror / who knows what .... local detective inspector investigates reports of funny goings on and uncovers international conspiracy ... I'll stop now before I get carried away and frighten someone.

sweven

1/ String him/her along (see grooming above) and see how long before they get fed up. Provided there's no direct link to yourself (eg phone numbers, home addresses etc), it could be good fun.

As it's a house sale, of course they do already have my address, and because I made my own website they also have my phone number, so whilst I'd like to string them along, maybe I'll just leave it.

Rex_Mundi

Have a look HERE

The site is full of tips on how to wind these people up. Have a look round the site. Some of the stories are hilarious of how people have kept the scammers going on for months. Some of the things they end up getting the scammers to do are brilliant. Worth a read! (make sure you're not busy.....lol)

Jay-Jay_4

Rex_Mundi wrote:

Have a look HERE

The site is full of tips on how to wind these people up. Have a look round the site. Some of the stories are hilarious of how people have kept the scammers going on for months. Some of the things they end up getting the scammers to do are brilliant. Worth a read! (make sure you're not busy.....lol)

LMAO! I was just going to put a link on to that site, it's brilliant isn't it? Have a look at the one where they scammed the scammer back by getting him to buy a 'laptop' which was really an A4 ring binder with computer keys glued inside :rotfl:


Sorry for going off topic there, FWIW I think that your house buyer is a scammer.