In the "What will they think of next" column comes this newest scam technique by one RaymondMike, scammer, on Craigslist.
So here's the story.
On Friday I listed this wonderful Lawrenceville Home For Sale. As with all my listings, I put a flier on Craigslist. I use an automated service provided by my loan officer for this. I didn't think much of the calls to rent the home since I get a lot of those on other homes, but this last call caught me.
Here's the call:
"Hello, this is Joshua."
"Yes, We'd like to see 333 Brook Lea Cove."
"Fantastic, where did you see it?"
"Well, that's the thing, is it even still available?"
"Of course, we just listed it today!"
"At $1,000 a month, that sounds too good to be true. "
STOP!
Hmm, well something must be wrong if I'm getting a few phone calls about rental then this. So I check out craigs list and ther it is, in all it's glory. An ad to rent out 333 Brook Lea Cove in Lawrenceville for $1,000. It has my photos, my description, but none of my contact information. In fact, there was no contact information other than the craigslist e-mail.
When I finally received this e-mail the puzzle started to take shape:
Mr Jarvis: I am in the process of trying to find a rental property in Gwinnett County. I have come across several ads on Craigslist, however this one struck me as odd. I have contacted the "owner" of this home to arrange a viewing. I decided to look into this matter a little further and determined it was a scam. I have copied the email here for you to view. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions. Its amazing to me the lengths people will go to steal from others. I obviously am in no postion to be buying a house so why rip off the ones that already have nothing?? I have not let this man know I am aware of this scam he is pulling. I was not sure if you would want to contact him or the owner of the home, I would think this is fraud and maybe you can catch him.
Of course, the e-mail this loser sends out has scam written all over it:
From: "raymond mike"
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 22:37:08 +0000
Subject: Re: House
"Hello, thanks for your reply,acttualy the place is for sale and its going for $179,900.Am on transfer to UK LONDON,that was why i handed it over to an agent to sale the place cause i will be away for the next 4 to 5 years.The place has been on sale for 8 months now,every month i pay the agent $400 for their services and mentenace fee.As am sending this email to you, my wife is in the hospital surfering from canser. That is a whole lot of money spent you know,can you imagin that i contacted the agent asking them for a loan of $20,000 with an intrese, that when the place is being sold, they can deduct it from the money and send me the balance that my wife is in the hospital and i needed money.
I was turnned down,i felt so bad that i began to ask my self lots of questions that why are people so mean.This is an agent i handed over my propertis to sale and i pay for their services what do i get in return,nothing.Then i say to my self why being so foolish for 8 month when you know you can rent out the place for a responsible home than paying $400 every month for good 8 month and no buyer yet. I must tell you am not happy with those agents at all.Well if you are still intrested in renting the place and you know you can take good care of the place for while am away cause i have changed my mind about salling the house,its now for rent.I will be glad to rent it out to you.If you want to view the place you can contact the agent
Call Joshua Jarvis: 770-374-4667 Note you will not tell them that the place is for rent cause i dint inform them that i want to rent out the place.You will tell them that you saw the place in www.backpage.com and you are intrested in the place so you want to view it.I just cant wait to rent out the place and stop paying $400 every month to some agent that dont have human feelings.I will be expecting your reply soon"
You know if you are going to scam someone, fine, but you don't have to throw someone under the bus at the same time. Basically, this person was trying to collect security deposits.
So from this E-mail and instance I can tell you to look out for a few things:
1. If the home for sale on craigslist has NO CONTACT information, it's either a very ill-informed home owner or it's a scammer. Both are extremely hard to deal with.
2. In keeping with #1, if the home for sale or rent deal looks too good to be true... It probably is, no matter how good the market is.
3. If you get an e-mail concerning Africa or the UK run.
4. If you see an e-mail that utilizes the words, "acttualy," "intrese," "salling," and who could forget, "dint," - RUN!
5. Agents, this is a good reminder that if you aren't on Craigslist or Backpage, then someone else might be.
With a home like this, it's easy to see why someone would use it.
Be safe out there and don't, under any circumstances, try to confront these scammers. They are cowards in my book, which is all the more reason to leave them alone. Just educate yourself.
i've seen similar scams with cars...cars with low miles and owner is on assignment out of the country...
thanks for the heads up.... good to know
You mean that not everything on the internet is true or reputable? How disheartening!
Seriously, this is important info. I have seen this before and you are right... don't confront or intervene, just report the scam to Craigslist so they can handle it.
Hi Joshua, I too put my listings on Craig'slist, but so far so good, but thanks for this heads up...people need to get a life for sure. great post!
yep, that's our little Craigslist! Magnet for kooks, kons and kleptomaniacs.
My craigslist lease listing attracted those "I'm out of the country but would like to lease this home..." emails. Just not quite right. I emailed one such responder that my client would be interviewing applicants after they had viewed tha home and submitted a credit check. Funny, they vanished.
Thank you for giving a good example of how they operate.
BTW -- All of my craigslist, etc. responses go to a free gmailbox that I can change at any time if scammers and spammers misuse it.
Agents, this is a good reminder that if you aren't on Craigslist or Backpage, then someone else might be.
With a home like this, it's easy to see why someone would use it.
Be safe out there and don't, under any circumstances, try to confront these scammers. They are cowards in my book, which is all the more reason to leave them alone. Just educate yourself.
Hi Joshua,
Thank you for this info and the safety reminder. I agree with you that getting educated about these scammers is important. I'm going to notify my clients who are using Craigslist.
I have gotten some strange responses from posting a rental on craigslist. The emailer said they were in the healthcare field and that they needed to find a place in Los Angeles. When I responded to the email, it was clear that the second email returned, was not the same writer. It went on to read something about sending a check - maybe they asked for a routing number to deposit the money to hold the deposit I can't remember but I think it was that - anyhow, it is a scam. Now I can tell when the emails are part of this group and I just delete them. The writing is very poor and they always say they are in the healthcare field. Just be careful with anything that sounds too good to be true and someone wanting to put a deposit down on an apt they have not seen!
wow..from time to time i get emails about millions of dollars + africa + me and my bank account but on listings? they go far dont they.
Thanks for the heads up... It never ceases to amaze the amount of time and energy people put into these scams...
I never heard of this scam before. Thanks for the post.
Wow, Joshua. I didn't know that you "lacked human feelings". How terrible for you, bro!
This is just nuts!!!
Matt Fagioli
http://www.diamonddwellings.com
I am always appalled to hear about scams.... so I started this new group:
Real Estate Fraud, Scams, and Ponzi schemes REPORT THEM HERE
Please feel free to post any scams you come across I think that we should help everyone out by making everonle aware all the "bad stuff" so they don't fall victim to these scams.
We all have to do our part in help the public by making with aware!
Here is the 'generic' email I get off of craigslist. I know because I got the exact same message on three different listings. I just delete them and ignore them. I have no idea what is behind it.
hello,
I'm interested in checking this place out. when are you available to show it?
When is this place available to move in? i'm flexable and sold already my house.
Please contact me back - thank you
Welcome to the internet
Wow, it seems you can never get rid of the scammers. It's sad that they are now making Craig's list a place to take advantage of others.
Imagine that...finding creativity in the "criminal" world! I'm sure Craig had no idea his little website would ever get this big and have these kind of problems!!
Thanks for the info!
Patty Keller, AnotherME
I got five e-mail responses to my craigslist ad yesterday, all with the exact same text in the message. I put the text of the first two sentances into google and found this blog entry. Thanks for taking the time to report this.
I'd love to meet an agent that charges only $400 per month and then will give me a check for 20 GRAND since my wife is sufering from canser, as an advance on their heart strings...
I guess this means I'm not a relative of someone recently deceased with a large estate and should not have wired airfare to that guy in Nigeria who loves me???
Joshua, thanks so much for this valuable information. I will be sure to pass it on to my fellow Realtors.
that is an eye-opener for us realtors to post properties in classified sites like this because the information can be altered
Malaysia Real Estate and Property
An attempt to scam me happened just this past week. I suspected scam right up front but now I'm reading up on everything I can find because it's unbelieveable just how many different ways to scam honest, hard working people are really out there. The more we can do to expose these scams and scammers the better.
Joshua,
And we thought free was good......my partner and I tried at his insistence and the crazy calls never stopped...UGH
Thanks!
Joshua,
Thanks for the heads up. Looking forward to co-oping with you again.
Tom Kim
Kay Kim's Team
Never received this particular e-mail but looks familiar, especially the spelling. This one is extremely up-setting. I can't even imagine how you were treated by the "potentialrenters" being the cold hearted agent with out feelings.