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

Read More

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.

Read More

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...........

Read More

Fake Work at Home Job Scam

Here is an excellent example of a scammer job ad. It's actually well written - looks like a real job ad. Okay, the fake last name isn't how that would be particularly spelled, but the sentence structure - while not great, isn't a total mess like most scammer emails. It will fool some people. Notice the misspelling of the domain name (it's missing an 'o'). I looked it up and it was created March 22, 2013, just in time to send out his scam email to hundreds of thousands of people. And of course, the WHOIS is protected. Mustn't find out who the scammer really is. Type in the web address and it delivers a 403 forbidden which means the scammer hasn't quite worked out how to make their fake website work properly yet.

It is a job scam.

How does this scam work?

Well, it would appear the job "opportunity" is a variation of a mystery shopper. It doesn't say this but my guess is eventually they will ask the victim to "test" the client's payment system by ordering something and writing up a review of the order process. Sometimes, the greedy scammers, will ask this payment be wired (and then that money is really going directly to the scammer) and sometimes they will have the victim receive money and send it elsewhere via wire transfer. At this point, the victim is money laundering. The scammer will tell the victim they will be reimbursed when they get paid - it will be their pay plus any money they spent testing the clients.

But a day or two before the pay check is supposed to be sent, the scammer disappears and moves on to hire another victim.

I am not looking for a job but lots of people are - so the odds of them sending this to someone who would love to make $35k working from home and is desperate or just not knowledgeable about these scams... they are going to end up victims.

PLEASE don't be one.

From: Tim Sheilds (info@emplymentopps.com)
Reply To: timsheilds@acerqc.com
Return Path: (b1@emplymentopps.com)
Subject: Need a Job Still?

Hi This is Tim Sheilds from Acerqc.com

I`m wondering if you are still looking for work as we have a opening , the position is working in our quality control division of our call center.

Basically you will be doing what I like to call reverse telemarketing where basically your going to be calling telemarketing companies up and seeing how they handle your call, You then write a report about if the person was knowledgeable about the product they were selling or how nice the person was on the phone or did they make you want to order the product etc etc.

The position pays 35k to start you can work at home and will be paid by direct deposit or check every week, check out our site you can see we are a good company to work with and if you feel you would like to apply for the position then reply back to me and I`ll get you started.

Hope to hear from ya soon

Tim Sheilds
Hiring Manager
Acerqc.com

Your email client cannot read this email.
To view it online, please go here:
http://emplymentopps.com/inter/display.php?M=1506600&C=27aab55a3449f61184b77098fd620c19&S=9&L=8&N=3

To stop receiving these
emails:http://emplymentopps.com/inter/unsubscribe.php?M=1506600&C=27aab55a3449f61184b77098fd620c19&L=8&N=9

Powered by Interspire

Read More

"Did you log into Facebook from somewhere new?" Facebook Email

Many of my friends are receiving this email. Is it a phishing scam email or not?

From: Facebook <notification+i-m5m7hi@facebookmail.com>
To: Elaine
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 1:25 AM
Subject: Did you log into Facebook from somewhere new?

Dear Elaine,

Your Facebook account was recently logged into from a computer, mobile device or other location you've never used before. For your protection, we've temporarily locked your account until you can review this activity and make sure no one is using your account without your permission.

Did you log into Facebook from a new device or an unusual location?

- If this was not you, please log into Facebook from your computer and follow the instructions provided to help you control your account information.

- If this was you, there's no need to worry. Simply log into Facebook again to get back into your account.

For more information, visit our Help Center here:
http://www.facebook.com/help/account_recovery

Thanks,
Facebook Security Team

One way to know it is not a phishing email is to open a new browser window, log in to your facebook account (not from any links in the email!) and the alert should pop up again. Whether the alert pops up again or not, it would be my recommendation to go in there and change your password. And don't pick something stupid simple like "password123" or english words easy for a software to guess by running through combinations.

Read More

Scam Email: Eric Anderson

Hi Kathleen,

I'm a small publisher in Sydney, Australia. I also got one from Eric Anderson, same format as all the others. My gut told me to do a search and I came across this site. Armed with this information, I wrote the following to "Eric Anderson":

- - -

Hi Eric,

Cost of Order = $1260
Cost of shipping = $420
Total cost = $1680

I spoke to my bank today and they said they cannot accept a credit card order from the Philippines without a scan of your passport (lots of scams from your country, I'm afraid). So if you can send that through as a jpg, I'll be grateful. Alternatively, you can send the money via Western Union (I use this method all the time for orders from Russia).

Please let me know how you'd like to proceed.

- - -

Read More

Scam Fake Email from U.S. Treasury

It's tax time. The number of fake scam emails I'm getting that pretend to be coming from the IRS or the U.S. Treasury is astounding. They are ALL fake. These government departments do NOT initiate contact via email! Ever!

The approach the scammer uses below is an effective one - provide so little detail that the user is compelled to click on the attachment just to figure out what the email is about and if it is legitimate. And once they click, it is too late. DO NOT CLICK ON ANY ATTACHMENTS in emails that appear to be from the IRS or other government agencies.

I recommend looking at the "message source" and finding the REPLY-TO address and see what that says. What does it say in this case? boainfo@superposta.com. Not exactly the U.S. Treasury. I then usually look for another field, to see where the email may have been routed from. But in this case, that didn't help as the scammer was able to hijack using yahoo mail. Probably hacked into someone's account.

Okay, here is what it looks like. It's simple, but it does get people to click on the attachment and that is where the trouble begins for the user. So don't click on any links in these types of email.

Subject: YOUR COMPENSATION FUNDS TRANSFERRING TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE (MRS. JOYCE SMITH), RECONFIRM TO PROCEED‏
From:    U.S Treasury Office (desk.ci@vf.vc)
Sent:    Sat 4/13/13 5:16 PM
To:    
   
Attachments:     1 attachment | Download all as zip (2.0 KB)
    The details.txt (2.0 KB)
   

Parts of this message have been blocked for your safety.

View the file for your message details.

Read More