[filo]

Hi Guys,

I've been reading the threads on MoneyGram scams (mainly the ones about people living abroad cant come 2 uk..cheap rent ect.) and just thought I would alert everyone to this, I emailed this poster asking about the rent (i assumed it was the weekly amount wrongly eneterd as monthly) then i read this forum. Then i got a reply from the poster, here is the full transcript (ie my 1st email and his replys)

Hi,

Please could you confirm the rental price of this property and also when it will be available?
Thanks


--Forwarded Message Attachment--
From: andrewalisonstuart@yahoo.co.uk
To: Subject: Re: Your Gumtree.com ad #23524431: 2 bedroom flat to rent in Chepstow Place, Westbourne Grove, W2
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 14:42:03 +0100

Hi,
My name is Stuart and I have the flat for rent. The rent is 545£ per month including all bills and the concil tax. I moved in Milan,Italy because I got a new job. I work in a hospital. You can rent the flat as long as you need to stay even for 2 or 3 years. The first payment will be for 2 months(1090£).In case you want it, let me know so we can arrange the transaction. For me is very hard to come in UK and if I will come i must be 100% sure that I will not come for nothing. As you can see in the photos everything it's new in the flat and the flat
is fully furnished and also benefits from wood flooring. You have internet connection, phone, washing machine with dryer, cable TV and most important parking place.
I wait your response.



Hi,

Do you have an agent in the UK so I can arrange a viewing?




From: andrewalisonstuart@yahoo.co.uk
To: Subject: RE: Your Gumtree.com ad #23524431: 2 bedroom flat to rent in Chepstow Place, Westbourne Grove, W2
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 14:56:01 +0100

Hi,
I work in a hospital and is very hard for me to come in UK. I can't take the risk to leave my new job for days and when I arrive in UK to see that I come for nothing. I want to be 100% sure that when I will meet you, we do the rent papers then i can come back in Italy.
So i can be sure of that look how we can do:
You make the payment from your name and address to your best friend name and address in UK using MoneyGram for 2 months rent that means 1090 GBP and send me the scanned receipt. As soon as I see the scanned receipt that you have made the payment, I will come in UK and you will see the flat and maybe rent it. After that, we will go together at the MoneyGram office and you will take the money back and pay me.So all you have to do is to find a MoneyGram office and wire 1090 GBP from your name to your friend name and send the scanned receipt.I am asking you this to be sure that I do not come in UK for nothing. I hope you understand.
P.S : As I told you,I have a lot of customers interested to rent the apartment. I will reserve the apartment to the first one that provides
me the scanned paper from MoneyGram. As soon as I have the confirmation from MoneyGram that the money are available on his name I stop the
transactions with all the other customers !

Soooo glad i read this forum before he replied!!! Im going to notify Gumtree if the post is still up....i cant find it at da mo so hopefully that means its already been reported!


Filo

[cokeyfish]

Hey,

This is a wierd one... I've been reading about money gram transfer scams - and most seems to be happening via gumtree... I've used this site before to get tenants and the process has been successful, but the last one - going by the name of Sarah Moak, with an email address sarah.moak@yahoo.com, is I guess trying to do the same scam

I've read about scams that invlove tenant seeking a room being involved with this scam, but I'm from the other side (please tell me if others are) The person was persistant with updates about the room and the emails were of a similar nature. She (or he) sent a money gram transfer of £2500 asking me to deduct what I need and then transfer back through Western Union to this address:

Mr. Jonathan Swindler
88 Preston New Road,
Blackpool,
Lancashire,
FY4 4HG

The thing is, the cheque has been found as fraudulent.. and the bank is going to investigate this...

I'm perplexed as where is the con other than being demanded that the advert was to be taken off the website immediately and having to wait 3 weeks to realise and thus losing rent...? Anyone else had this problem?

[Bluey]

The anatomy of the scam is that fake funds go in (bogus cheque, for example) that tricks people to think that they have received a credit.

Real funds go back (actual money from the victims bank account) which goes back to the scammer via a virtually untraceable wire transfer.

Takes a while for the fake funds to be detected so the scammer is doing their best to trick the victim into returning the balance or an alleged 'overpayment', in order to receive real money back.

Fake in. Real back. Geddit now?

[cokeyfish]

Thank you but don't get me wrong, I got that much very clearly the whole 'fake in, real back' - thing is - anybody can check so easily with bank details especially if it says it's debited on the same day of the cheque.. All banks should notice a fraudulent check straight away so i just wondered how the hell the con artists thought it would work.. thats all. I also wanted to know whether it was common

Oh plus - the surname of the so called return transfer is called Swindler... they certainly hand it to you on a plate.. the person involved is still in contact and wants to know what the status is of the cheque.. I'm tempted to play along hmmmmm

[Bluey]

[cokeyfish]

Nononooooo you're wrong, they put the cheque in the same day they debited it (finding it fake) which is the day after I put it in. Now that is a florishing total of...... 1 day.... ?????

[Prissy]

WoW,
How happy i am to come across this posting as i too found the PERFECT flat in kings cross london in which it was £135 a week including all bills and council tax plus it was beautifully furnished, so i quickly emailed the person and got a response EXACTLY THE SAME as yours she was claiming she lived in ITALY and WORKED IN A HOSPITAL and had to be sure i wanted it as if she came over for no reason she would loose her job.
So she wanted me to Send a recipt of £1000 Of 'rent money' that i would put into a post office / Money Gram over here. However having had many long and boring law lessons reading up on fraud etc i thought i would go and check it out so i did i went to the money gram office and explained my situation and she told me that if someone has the recipt number of my money then they can easily transfer it into their bank account without even coming over here... so i would of lost all that money if i had gone along with it and tbh i think that gumtree should do something about these people as ive been looking for a flat for a month now for myself and my bf we both work and want a reasonable priced 1 bed flat but its getting ridiculous as some people who advertise dont get back to you and then you have the fraudsters.

So dont EVER EVER EVER use money gram to pay 'Rent'.

Thankyou.