steve kwan user experience designer

Beware of rental scams!

(January 8th, 2007 - 5:34PM)

I'm trying to find a roommate, and I've received an alarming amount of scam e-mail responses to my postings.

For example, I posted an ad on Craigslist and received an e-mail from a Russian girl claiming she wanted to take the room. I had barely posted any information on the room whatsoever, and no pictures, but this girl was really keen on taking the room. I was a bit surprised that she was so eager to rent the place with such little information; normally I'd expect prospective tenants to stop by, check out the place, establish a rapport, and the like. But she seemed nice enough.

I told her she could have the room, at which point I received this in an e-mail response.

"I will be shipping some of my luggages like,well Art Designed house and bedroom frames with my stored research profile desktop and Laptop computer and my car (Toyota camry 2.2 LE 2002 Model)that my uncle bought for me during my graduation, my uncle has promised to include the money for the shipment with the money for the rent,so as soon as the shippers come to deliver my stuffs,you will help me to give them the remaining money at the point of there delivery after you may have deducted the money for the rent.."

Whoa, whoa. Wait a second. She's going to send me the rent, plus additional money to handle business on her behalf?

A quick Google search revealed that this is actually a scam. I found an advisory posting from Brock University that almost exactly matched my situation (see "RENTAL SCAM" Regarding Off Campus Housing). From the article:

"The alleged tenants are not all that interested in the details of the housing, but are more interested in having the landlord accept a cheque as a down payment. Once accepted, the cheque arrives in excess of the amount required."

"The scam artist (prospective tenant) then contacts the landlord with an urgent need to have the excess returned to them. This is in hopes that the landlord sends the excess back to them before the original cheque clears the bank and is found to be worthless."

Since this incident, I've received a lot more e-mails from out of country that meet this description. Sadly, I've received many more scam e-mails than legitimate ones.

I've noticed a few patterns. All these scam e-mails seem to have the following characteristics:

• The scammer isn't interested in obtaining more information about the room. Right off the bat, he/she wants to take it.
• The scammer offers to send me money in gross excess of the rent required, often thousands of dollars more. The scammer then asks me to conduct some sort of business on his/her behalf. The end result is the scammer's attempt to get me to send him/her the difference.
• The scammer says he/she hopes I "can be trusted."
• The scammer is out of country - usually from Europe or Asia. He/she has terrible English.
• The scammer mentions all of his/her nice belongings that will be brought over, such as a Benz, plasma TV, and so on.
• The scammer makes a point of saying he/she is a "good person," good Christian, etc.
• The scammer uses a yahoo.com or yahoo.co.uk e-mail address.
• The scammer often claims to be either a student or a software engineer.

My advice to anyone looking to find a tenant or roommate:

• Insist on meeting the person.
  Never, ever rent to someone you haven't met. Especially if you have to live with him/her.
• Do not take out-of-country tenants.
  Call this discrimination if you want, but it's just protecting yourself from scammers. Insist on having them come here first so you can meet them in person.
• Do not conduct ANY business on the tenant's behalf.
  If asked to handle a tenant's shipping or send a cheque back, RUN, don't walk, away from the discussion.

Overall, be careful. This Russian girl almost had me convinced, and I'm pretty Net-savvy. Some of these scammers are very subtle. Honestly, it never even occurred to me that someone might try to scam me by posing as a tenant, so this really blind-sided me. Just a heads-up to other landlords.