Rental Scammer - Paloma Sanchez

Got an email from Paloma Sanchez - [email protected]

First I got a sms from a suspicious number saying that he is interested in renting and please respond to the above email Id. I sent email acknowledging receipt of email and asked for more details. This is what I got

Email read as below:
"Hello,
Thanks for getting back to me,am a lady willing to rent/share the room
and i am at sea at the moment as i am a Maritime and Coastguard Agency
(MCA) employee in Canada but i got transfer to work and study part
time down there but due to the nature of my work, phone calls making
and visiting of website are restricted. I only squeezed out time to
check this advert and send you an email regarding this.
i am ready to rent it asap so tell me how much is the rent/share per
month and how much deposit do i have to pay. Please send me more
period you wish to rent this out.

Looking forward to read back from you soon
Regards
Paloma"

At that point I didn't know that its a scam. I wrote back even admitting that I thought it was scam. i gave details of the room. I had three room for offer. She wrote back as below:

"Hello,
Thanks for your email and I will be paying you through PayPal, i would
have requested for your bank account information but for safety of
both party with giving bank account information online i prefer using
PayPal.But if you do not have a PayPal account, all you have to do is
to log on to http://www.paypal.com and set up an account and get back to me
with PayPal money request for me to make the payment. I will also like
you to get back to me with your full home address for me to forward it
to my mover agent to calculate the total cost of moving my little
stuffs down there.I will be waiting to read back from you.

Cheers
Paloma"

At that point I said, you sent the money to me, using my Paypal ID, which I gave her. I got a reply from her:
"Hello,
I was just about to pay when i have this problem with my shipping
company, my shipping agent says i will need to pay for the moving
before they can ship my items, they charge me $ 600.00 AUD for pick
up and delivery and payments for pick up will be made to the corporate
international headquarter in Oversea.The payment is made through
western union money transfer.I will add $ 600.00 AUD to 3 Month Master
bedroom rent $2,274+ Bond $758 making $3,732.00 AUD which you will
help me to send the excess $600.00 AUD to their corporate headquarters
in Oversea. I will send the funds through PayPal and email you to let
you know when i am through with the payment.This can be done by
visiting any post office cos there is always western union agent
there,I have also include 100.00 AUD for the western union money
transfer Charge. I would have done it myself but i am not with enough
cash here due to the nature of my work,i am a little incapacitated I
will appreciate your cooperation here,you will get a payments
notification from PayPal immediately i transfer the funds.....

Regards
Paloma"

I had only asked for the bond money. She was paying me additionl three month's rent.

I responded by saying, I'll be happy to transfer the funds through western union, but only after the funds are cleared from paypal into my bank account.

I have had to response from her.

I then googled to find that similar scams were rampant. Infact the wordings are as it is with grammatical mistakes.

Beware of these scammers.

I received the same SMS/email today. This person is very persistent. If it wasn't for the fact that she insists on paying a deposit by Paypal, she is quite convincing. She even sent me a copy of her passport, see: http://goo.gl/Avwlf. It's possible that it's a fake, but it looks real enough. Still a scammer though, or she's just not having much luck finding suitable accommodation.

For the record, my location is Adelaide, and I had placed my ad on Gumtree (which seems to attract more than its fair share of ratbags and time wasters).

Welcome Visitant,

There is no doubt--this is absolutely a scammer, not a real renter.

Scammers frequently run multiple scams at one time, and they use one scam to get things to use in another. For example, scammers posing as renters often simultaneously run rental scams in which they pose as property owners. In those scams, they will demand passport scans of people who think they are going to rent from them. They will then use those same passport scans in other scams.

In other words, the passport may be authentic, and if so, it probably belongs to another victim of this scammer.

Hi, I recieve the same email from this Paloma Sanchez too ([email protected]) .... on 16 Nov

She wrote the same messages ! I really thought that she is sincere in renting a room as I've put up a post to rent my room in "easyroommates" and "share-accommodation". I even sent her pics of my room ! I started to get suspisous when she came back quickly that she wanted to rent the room and the way she wrote to request the "pay pal" thing was too professional. So I decide to do a websearch for her name and bring me to this website. I'm glad I did the search. Not sure what will happen if I went ahead to provide her the paypal request.

What is the motive of doing this ?

FYI.. I'm from Singapore.

Welcome to ScamWarners Librap. As Dotti said, scammers often are working several aspects of a scam at the same time. They may be wanting access to your PayPal account to continue a different scam.

Scammers always work to keep their identity and identifying information out of any contacts or any information they are doing. This is why the have unsuspecting people send scans of their passport or other identifying information.

The steal credit card information and if they could get you to give them enough information they would hack into your PayPal account. Scammers know no boundaries, either by nationality or by how low they will go to get money..

Your best approach is to ignore any future communication from this person. Nothing good will come of it.

Just been done by this rental scammer and only did a search after I had raised an invoice for her, thinking she was genuine. I called paypal and reported it and it seems that their end goal is to have you transfer the funds via western union - as opposed to identity theft. But I am annoyed and dismayed at being done - first time it's happened so far, usually scammers are a lot more obvious. Really glad to have discovered this information and hoping that nothing else bad comes of it.

Hi I received the same wordings of scam. I've put my adv in mudah.my, which is the most popular web adv in Malaysia. I've got whatsapp SMS from this number +6016-3191172. It sounded similar as you received from your e-mail.
The whatsapp reply from this scammer is as below:
Scammer: Hello is your posted App/House in mudah.my still available for Rent?
Me: hi, yes still available
Scammer: Okay,i am Michael Batista I'm willing to rent your apartiment and i am at sea at the moment as i am a,Coastguard Agency employe but i work with Seaport agency. but due to the nature of my work, phone calls making and visiting of website are restricted. I only squeezed out time to check this advert and sent you a text regarding the unit. What is the rental fee of the appt and deposits?

This scammers are diligently using whatsapp as communication now. can refer this image. xxxxxxxx

@azizah
Hi,i received the message from this particular person as well,same name same dialogue same company,
I too posted my ad on mudah.my and receive a whatsapp message from him.
The number he's using is +016-6582709.
Good thing i googled his name before anything else happened.

Yup i just received the same text message from this so called Michael Batista. it was too good to be true so i had just googled the name of the agency and thank god i saw your post here. Thanks!