Thursday, June 20, 2013

Craigslist Apartment Scam

You must be careful when looking for apartments to rent on Craigslist. Craigslist is FLOODED with scammers. Some pretend to be buyers and try and trick people to wiring them money (they pretend to buy, then overpay, then say oops - send the extra back via wire transfer, when the original payment all along was counterfeit) or they pretend to be sellers and have NOTHING to sell, but just make up ads and steal photos from elsewhere on the internet or on Craigslist. In the apartment scam, they try to get upfront deposits for apartments that exist but they have no association with - and no ability to rent or not rent.

Here is a CLASSIC setup in Craigslist. The potential victim (who luckily did not become a victim) replied to an ad for an apartment for rent on Craigslist. Not only do they go for that upfront payment, they also try and collect a lot of identity information while they are at it.

How to avoid this? NEVER ever ever ever do wire transfers. That is how these scammers get money in these scams. Once they pick up that wire transfer (which they do VERY quickly), the money and the scammer are untraceable - and gone.
From: Lucas Wesley (wlucas89@yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: - $530 Room & Private Bath-Available (berkeley)

Thanks for your interest in my apartment. The apartment is available for long term & short term lease is also acceptable. The building is in a great location situated in the quiet and safe area and offers secure .

Its a spacious and lovely 2-bedroom fully furnished apartment with utilities included. The kitchen is well equipped.Utilities and Equipments: Kitchen well equipped(microwave oven, Dish washer, blender, Cocktail mixer, Sandwich maker, stove e.t.c), all utilities included such as Internet facilities,Parking space, e.t.c

I tried to look for an agent that I could give the document & the keys before I left but could not find any as a matter of urgency. And I don't want home misused in my absence that is why I took the keys and documents along with me. So I hope you will promise me to take very good care of the apartment always.

I have the keys and the apartment documents here with me and I will be shipping it to you through DHL courier service after processing your application form. Attached are the interior pictures and if you like it and willing to proceed with the rental. I will like you to fill the form below and email it back to me asap for processing.

RENTAL APPLICATION FORM

FIRST NAME:__________
MIDDLE NAME:__________
LAST NAME:__________
(CELL)PHONE__________
(HOME)PHONE__________
KIDS _____ (YES/NO), HOW MANY ________
PRESENT ADDRESS: _____________________
CITY: _______________
STATE:______________
ZIP CODE: ____________
WHEN DO YOU INTEND MOVING IN? ______________
HOW LONG DO YOU INTEND STAYING? ____________
HOW MANY MONTH RENT ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY UPFRONT_________
DO YOU HAVE PET _________
KIND OF PETS: _____________
HABITS
DO YOU SMOKE ______________
DO YOU DRINK ______________
DO YOU WORK LATE NIGHT _________
REFERENCE
NAME_____________
ADDRESS_____________

Payment will be through wire transfer (Western Union Money Transfer/ Money Gram) and the keys will be shipped to immediately payment as been confirmed.

Once i received the filled copy of the rental application form, I will make an arrangement on how to get the apartment keys and documents shipped to you through DHL courier service without any further delay.

I await your swift response.

Regards
Lucas

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Fake Email Quota Limit Scam

Here is a scam email I received this morning. Notice how the Reply-To goes to anti-spam.org. That not only makes the email seem more legitimate to the unsuspecting and non-technical person but all the people who will reply will muck up the bandwidth of the anti-spam.org server so the scammer is getting two birds with one stone.

The headers also revealed that they likely used a hijacked hotmail account to send out this spam. So they can not be tracked down.

Their real goal is to get readers to click on that link and then bad things will happen - some thing bad will download to your computer, or they will try and collect all your account info, so they can send out more scam emails through your hijacked email account. Or both. 

From: Webmail Technical Services. (info@usa.com)
Reply-To: (noreply@anti-spam.org)
Return-Path: info@usa.com
Subject: IMPORTANT INFORMATION IN YOUR WEB-MAIL USER‏

WEBMASTER EMAIL ACCOUNT UPGRADE

ATTENTION WEB-MAIL USER.

Your E-mail Box has reached its maximum limit of  500MB storage and your account will be deactivated if you do not upgrade it now. To upgrade your web-mail account, kindly click on the below link and follow the instructions to upgrade space for more storage.

CLICK HERE :  http://nlintu.com/spmsecurity-activate/

Your account shall remain active after you have successfully confirmed your account. Failure To Click This Link And Upgrade Your Quota May Result In Loss Of Important Information In Your Mailbox/Or Cause Limited Access To It.

Thank you for your cooperation.
Webmail Technical Services.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Scam Email: Janet Roberts

Lately, I've been receiving a lot of emails from people selling Avon, Herbalife, Mary Kay, Amway, Melaleuca, Tupperware or Arbonne - the scammers seem to be targeting this demographic lately, hoping these independent sellers will fall for their fake buyer scam.

In the Fake Buyer Scam, the scammer will pretend to buy items and then send a counterfeit check. They will *always* overpay for the order, asking that the extra be sent to a shipper or some other third party. And there will be some weird reason why it is necessary to send that extra via wire transfer. Sometimes they just say they sent too much by mistake and please send the extra back via wire transfer. Whatever the reason the critical factors of this scam are overpayment and wire transfer. It is just the scammer at the other end of that wire transfer and once they pick up the money, they - and the money, are untraceable and gone. They hope to get their victims to wire that money before they figure out the original check is fake and the bank will withdraw the entire amount from your account.

Variations of the counterfeit check are: stolen credit card numbers not yet reported as such so there is a delay before you receive the chargeback, and even some will pretend to pay by paypal and send you a fake copycat email of a paypal payment confirmation email (and you'll be surprised at how many people believe that fake email and go ahead and wire the money, never manually checking their paypal account to see no money has, in fact, been paid).

Often these scammers have poor sentence structure and misspellings but another clue is they seem to ignore your questions and just reply with their "template" of what the next step in the scam is. it is too much effort to actually pretend to be a real buyer at this point - people are either going to fall for the scam or not. And sadly, enough people ARE falling for the scam, that they don't yet need to try any harder than they do now. It is sad.

But really, it is easy to avoid falling for this scam. DO NOT accept any overpayments. These are not tiny overpayments - they are significant. And NEVER EVER EVER wire money in behalf or back to any customer. EVER. Simple. Avoid these two things and you will not fall for this scam.

Here is an example of an exchange with a scammer recently sent to me that highlights how these emails typically go. It ends because Becky then got suspicious and googled Jane Roberts and found all the other people who have received scams from "Jane Roberts" (name has been faked, it is very likely to be some dude in Nigeria or some other foreign country).
From: Becky
To: janetrobert101@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2013 12:15 AM
Subject: Arbonne

Hi Janet,
I received an email from Arbonne about you being interested in Arbonne products.  What is the best way to reach you?
thanks,
Becky
Next Email:
On Jun 6, 2013, at 2:22 AM, janet robert [janetrobert101@yahoo.com] wrote:

Below is the lists of my inquiry.

2 of collagen support #817
1 of Makeup primer #7825
5 womans balance #1995

Kindly advise back as soon as possible with the quotes excluding the shipping costs from it. We will be responsible for the pick up of the order at your location once the payment is confirmed. My shipper will be making the pick up arrangement once i get the receipt of the payment from you .

Hope to read from you soon.

Best Regards
janet robert
Next Email:
On Jun 7, 2013, at 4:22 AM, janet robert [janetrobert101@yahoo.com] wrote:

Greetings to you and thanks for your response. I will like you to kindly get back to me with the information below for the payment of the Arbonne to be mailed out Am so sorry,i don't have a credit card nor debit card. I can only make payment with a Cashier-Check drawn and cashable at any bank. If accepted, kindly advise back with information such as :-

Physical Name :-
Address :-
City :-
State :-
Zipcode :-
cell Number :-

I will be waiting to read from you soon for the payment of the order to be mailed out. Kindly get back to me . Hope to work with you on future orders.

Regards
janet robert
Next Email:
From: Becky
To: janet robert [janetrobert101@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, June 7, 2013 5:10 AM
Subject: Re: Arbonne the check

Good morning.  I need to get your information to complete the order- name, address, and email address.    Thanks

Becky
Next Email:
From: janet robert [janetrobert101@yahoo.com]
Date: June 8, 2013, 4:26:01 AM EDT
To: Becky
Subject: Re: Arbonne
Reply-To: janet robert [janetrobert101@yahoo.com]

send me your info so that i can get the check sent right away...........