So I have a scammer on the line...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

SoulMate and I have been looking for a place to rent in the Marietta/Kennesaw/Atlanta area and have been running into a boatload of scams in the process.

One last night seemed borderline, could have been true but probably not. So, I sent an email:

[QUOTE=Soul]
Hey, my fiancee and I are looking to rent in the Atlanta area. We saw your Craigslist posting and wanted to get some more information - what are you looking for in terms of a deposit? Would you say the condo you’ve listed is quiet? How’s the parking situation? What do you estimate utilities for current tenants run?

Thanks!

[/QUOTE]

Instantly, the automated response came:

[QUOTE=Nutjob Scam Artist]
Hello,
> My name is Justin, i am the apartment owner, the apartment is still
> available. The monthly rent for the apartment is US $800.00. First
> month’s advance, $800.00 deposit. The lease can be from 3 months to 3
> years. You will receive the deposit back when you move out.
> The apartment is unoccupied and you can move in right away 434
> Marietta St NW Atlanta GA 30313, a very select downtown
> neighborhood. The area is very nice, very quiet and safe, it is close
> to all downtown attractions, easy access to public transportation.
> Great Restaurants, Bars, Pubs and shopping abound in the immediate
> area, within walking distance.
> Here is a photo album with pictures of the apartment, please tell me
> if you could see it.
>
> Photo Storage
>
> Right now i am living in the United Kingdom, working for the US
> Consulate in London and will be working here for the next 4 years. The
> apartment is for rent only, i have never lived and will never live
> there. I will be in the United States only 2, 3 times a year probably
> just inspecting the apartment, when i have the time for it. Because
> there is nobody in the US that can show you the apartment, it is
> insured with JP Morgan Chase Co. and you can inspect the apartment
> before you decide to rent it. The keys to access the apartment and
> lease will be mailed to your address after your deposit has been
> received. You will get the deposit back if you do not want to rent the
> apartment.
>
> The apartment is modern, bright, very spacious, over 1550sqft, has 2
> Bedrooms, 2 Full Baths, Living Room, a spacious/open modern Kitchen
> with Stainless Steel Appliances: range/oven, microwave, dishwasher &
> refrigerator, lots of closets and storage space. This apartment has
> been upgraded in every way possible including: Air Conditioning,
> Brazilian Cherry Hardwood floors, Granite and marble bathrooms,
> jacuzzi & separate shower, stainless steel appliances, front loading
> super capacity Washer / Dryer in the unit, 42" Sony LCD TV, DVD, Sound
> System. It is fully furnished, all new bedding/linens, all cookware &
> dishes come with the apartment, high speed internet, premium cable
> w/HD, phone, all utilities and 2 Gated Car Parking Spaces Included.
> Well behaved pets are allowed. Any maintenance or repairs in the
> apartment are resolved by a maintenance company and i will be billed
> for their service. The price is the same for the apartment furnished
> or unfurnished. All amenities fees and utilities are included.
>
> All the best wishes,
> Justin.
[/QUOTE]

Right, scam. Fine. I flagged the posting and moved on, but was frustrated and fed up with dealing with trying to find a home while simultaneously protecting my backside from being thusly penetrated. So I sent an immature email back:

[QUOTE=Immature Soul]
DER DER OKAY KAN I SEND U MY BANK ACUNT INFO NOW OR DO U WANTS IT LATR
[/QUOTE]

Silly, like hiding in the dark under the covers and flipping mommy the bird after she makes you go to bed at 9:30 (the bitch), but I felt slightly better for having vented.

And then this morning, I got this:

[QUOTE=Surprisingly Persistent Scam Artist]
Hello,
Since the apartment is insured with JP Morgan Chase Co. if you want to rent it i will need you to confirm the details where the lease and keys to access the apartment will be mailed.

Name:
Address:
City:
Zip:

JP Morgan Chase Co. will send you an invoice and details where to send the deposit. You will send the deposit via Money Gram to one of their agents in the UK. Once the transfer is confirmed the keys and paperwork will be mailed to you so you can access the apartment and review the lease. You will get the deposit back if you decide not to rent the apartment. Otherwise if you decide to rent the apartment you will contact JP Morgan Chase Co. telling them they can forward your deposit to me and we will set up the monthly payment protocol, the monthly rent will be paid by direct deposit to my CitiBank account. Trust me the apartment is amazing.
Regards,
Justin.
[/QUOTE]

Well fine, assbasket. If you’ve got enough free time to respond to an email as asinine as mine, then I’ve got enough time to jerk you around for a while. What do you guys think I should do to screw with the good fellow?

2

Tell him you have his deposit, along with an extra $2,000 if he’ll facilitate a bank transfer for you… He just has to deposit the money order you send him for $10k, keep $2,800 for himself, and then send you the balance…

3

Tell him you work for JP Morgan Chase and are transferring to the Atlanta office. Ask who you should talk with there.

4

Tell him you would like to inspect the place in person. Can someone from JP Morgan meet you there?

5

Well, the standard response is to make him take a ridiculous picture of himself to prove his identity. (Warning: that picture is Work Safe, but some other pictures on that site definitely aren’t).

Then mail him a toilet.

6

I unfortunately don’t have the funds for a toilet mailing, so the following has occurred:

[QUOTE=Beloved Soul]
Justin,

I’m actually moving to Atlanta because I’m transferring to the JP Morgan Chase Co. branch office there from a New York office. Who could I liaison with in Atlanta to facilitate the transfer?
[/QUOTE]

7

Forgive me, but while this does seem suspicious I would give it enough credence to at least follow up a little more. It shouldn’t be that hard to check this with JP Chase right? Ask Justin for a specific person to contact, if he can’t provide - screw it. If he can, then perhaps, just perhaps it is on the up and up. Get the bank account details - perhaps it very genuinely is a JP Chase account (again you can get a pretty good indication whether the money goes to a trust account or an individual once you have the actual details right?)

8

I am sure there are many, many people on Craigslist and similar sites who would be only too willing to educate you in the follies of trusting suspicious seeming people on the internet. Just be sure to have a nice large stack of cash to pay for the lessons.

9

Who said anything about trusting? I said “investigate further”…how do you get from there to sending truckloads of money to Nigeria?

10

Ah, sure you can. Just have him pay for the shipping :slight_smile:

11

It’s a scam and should be given zero credence or less. There are tons of similar postings on Craigslist. I started a GQ thread about it recently to ask what the angle is, not realizing it’s the simplest one imaginable - they’re just trying to get the deposit.

12

I would have followed up a little more as well. I would never put down a deposit for an apartment I hadn’t seen, and I probably would have e-mailed the guy to that effect and then seen what he said. “You send money, then you view apartment,” is not a reasonable expectation.

13

Oh, it’s a scam. Believe me. My fiancee is a real-estate agent, and agents all throughout the Atlanta area are having their listings re-posted on Craigslist as rentals by scam artists trying to get a deposit. And when he gave the address of the building, I went on a Google Street View tour - the building is less than a mile from the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca-Cola. The building’s also listed with Coldwell Banker, as you can see in the window in the street view, and those condos are currently selling, not renting, for $400k.

14

“Send me several hundred dollars and I’ll send you the key.”

That was the first clue, sunshine.

15

There is no reason to follow up further: there is a 100% probability that this is a scam, and a 0% probability that it is legit.

The pattern itself is insane: nobody rents out apartments like this. Insurance for allowing random strangers into the place unsupervised after mailing them the key? Really? JP Morgan Chase is in the residential rental management business now, as well as being your insurer? Really?

Any one of those in itself would be more than enough to convince me, but in addition we have the super nice apartment description - having lived in Atlanta that is not a $800pm apartment, in much the same way a new Bentley is not a $13,000 car

People do move far away and rent out their apartments while they are gone (we actually do have a legitimate apartment that we are renting out in Atlanta). However, the listing will not look like this. They’d probably use a rental management company that would handle everything in their absence. From the tenants point of view it will still look like a “standard” rental process: you’ll view the apartment (no money down!) with the rental agent, etc.

16

Wow. Now my jerking around that car-warranty scam caller by telling him that my make and model was “1990 Trabant” seems so… inadequate.

17

Why even bother? Did you look at the pictures and read the description? No way in heck that apartment is going for $800 a month (internet, cable and other utilities all included no less!).

The lowball rent advertised is obviously intended to entice potentials victims to turn off their brains in the hopes of a good deal. Much like the car ads with people selling their cars at <25% of Blue Book because they are “depolying overseas”, etc.

Edit: I see this horse has already been beaten a bit.

18

Yep, that’s the ticket:

Step 1: Find broken, super heavy appliance. Rip out everything that could possibly be useful.

Step 2: Claim you’re sending 20 laptops as a deposit. Require scammer to pay shipping. Ship massive hunk of junk instead.

Step 3: Laugh as they fume, and ideally convince them it was all a mistake and you’ll REALLY ship the laptops this time. Rinse, repeat.

Of course, the guy I linked to above has a lot of resources at hand (i.e., heavy broken crap), a decoy address so the scammers can’t get his REAL address, voice artist skill, and a ton of time. :slight_smile:

19

Not only that, but an absentee landlord? He’s only in the US 2-3 times a year? How the heck does he know that you’re not going to trash the place?

Answer: He doesn’t care because it’s not his apartment.

20

An absentee landlord in itself isn’t unusual. But any sane absentee landlord is going to have a local agent to handle finding tenants, maintenance work, getting the rent, etc. From a tenants point of view the interaction with the agent will be pretty much the same as if they were interacting with the local owner.