SCAM on craigslist: [email protected]

Hello Jenny
Thanks for your interest and I'm very happy to hear back from you today. For now, I've decided to give you my place for rent, so you are the new chosen tenants of my property, Congratulations to you (Jenny)...its nice to tell me about the third girl that is good so you are going to be three girls?.

The next step to take right now is to go ahead and send me your rent deposit payment through Western Union, so that I can go ahead and send you the keys of the place via DHL Express Delivery Service, and make sure you get back to me with the Payment Details , because as soon as you get back to me with the payment details for the rent deposit soon, the shipment tracking number of the keys package will be sent to you immediately, so you can use it to track the keys status online and to know when the keys will gets to you at your doors steps (Nextday Delivery), because I will make sure I booked the shipping with Express Delivery Services immediately, by available first flight delivery, so you are to locate nearby Western Union Offices or Grocery Stores around you and make the rent deposit payment (575€) soon.

Please note that, I have written out your delivery details on a piece of paper with me, so please I want you to re-confirm your delivery details to me carefully in your next email, because it's so important, as I will not like the keys of the place to deliver to the wrong person (Except You) Also the keys is in 3 set and i will send the document along...

Preview of Your Delivery Information...
Keys Package Receiver's Name: Jenny Yeung.
Keys Package Receiver's Address:.

Here is my Western Union Payment Receivers Details:

Receiver's Name: Paulo Matic.
City: London.
State: England.
Zipcode: SW7 5LE.
Country: United Kingdom (England).

Amount sent (575€).

Also get back to me ASAP once the payment have been transfer with the below details from the Western Union Outlets OR do scan me the Western Union Transfer confirmation receipts...

MTCN # (Money Transfer Control Number), 10 Digit Number?.
Senders First and Last Name?.
Senders Full Address?.
Exact Amount Sent.

Thanks very much for your willingly to promise over maintenance's of my Apartment. Once again, please make sure you always keep my place neat and tidy.

Once again, Congratulations to you, as you are the new chosen tenant's of my place...

I am awaiting your soonest response to this email today, and hopefully to hear back from you soon.

after we have wired 575 euros through the western union, the owner asked us to send one more month deposit again without sending the key package to us as we agreed:

Hi Jenny,

Sorry for late response. How are you doing today, and hope all is well with you and your friends. I just want you to know that, I have visit the DHL Company today (12th of March 2010) to booked the delivery of the keys package to your current address you send to me, and for now, the DHL Company have booked the keys packages in their file list, and they already have the keys packages IN TRANSIT to your destinations, and I was giving the DHL IN TRANSIT confirmation receipt today as a shipping references to your destinations, so I have attaching you the IN TRANSIT confirmation receipt in this email for you to view...

Moreover, I consulting with my lawyer these morning about the delivery of the keys packages to you, but my lawyer was giving me a LEGAL ADVICE, due to the last bad experiences we have with our last tenants, because we send a Ownership documents of my property to our last tenants after giving me the first and last month, but later found out that, our last tenants tried to claimed our property after receiving a whole documents of my property and also owe four month rent, so due to the bad experiences we have, my lawyer advice me overhere that, you should go ahead and send me 1 months rent payment to the same payment information, and after giving me the payment details for the other 1 months rent and if you dont want to stay more than a month your money with be refund before will receive our document back from you OK, and i will make sure I get back to you with the DHL Tracking # with you will used to get tracked with the keys packages online and for you to know when the packages will get to your destinations, because my lawyer already told the DHL company to hold the packages IN TRANSIT as you can also seeing in the IN TRANSIT confirmation receipt attaching to you in this email...

Hopefully to hearing back from you today ASAP...

Best luck,

Matic.

The Property Owner.

and the DHL Tracking number is fake and not a proper airwaybill tracking number. We used another email account to mail to the same owner, what he replied are the SAME , his apartment was still available for lease!!?? (he had a template script of answering rental request) At that time , we knew we were treated and we couldn't get back our money.

We were very annoyed that we were so careless of taking the SCAM advices of Craigslist
NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM or any other wire service - anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer.FAKE CASHIER CHECKS & MONEY ORDERS ARE COMMON, and BANKS WILL CASH THEM AND THEN HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE when the fake is discovered weeks later.
CRAIGSLIST IS NOT INVOLVED IN ANY TRANSACTION, and does not handle payments, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer "buyer protection" or "seller certification"
NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal info, etc.)
AVOID DEALS INVOLVING SHIPPING OR ESCROW SERVICES and know that ONLY A SCAMMER WILL "GUARANTEE" YOUR TRANSACTION.

[Michelle]

I am sorry to learn that you have lost money to a Room for Renter scammer.

There is no easy way to tell you this: There is virtually no chance of recovering your money. I am guessing that you sent a payment to the scammer by Western Union. These payments are impossible to trace once they have been collected, especially in Nigeria where the scammer was probably writing to you from.

The scammer has your details: You may receive further e-mails from people offering to recover your lost money. These are called 'Recovery Scams. Eventually you will be asked to pay fees, and if you do pay, you will loose even more money. I will NEVER ask you for money.

Even though the Police will do little to help you, I would urge you to report the crime to them in order that it can, at least, be recorded as a statistic. Without like these reports from people like you, then the authorities will never begin to know the true level of this kind of Cyber-Crime.

If you are still searching for rooms on the internet and someone asks you, for whatever reason, to pay money upfront before viewing then it will be a scam. Western Union payments should only ever be used for payments that you personally know and have met before.