Property Scams From Gumtree

Marcelo Kluvert <marcelokluvert@yahoo.com>

Offering a lovely apartment located in "Central London Via fulham" with two bathrooms and either 2 or 3 bedrooms depending on whether you trust the ad or his email more. Rent is £400 pcm total, including all bills. Marcelo is a very busy man but will come down from Newcastle for a viewing once he has seen a Western Union receipt of a £980 transfer to prove you have funds available.

Georgia Washington <wgeorgia63@yahoo.co.uk>

Is offering a flat "looking very nice and clean" with "well tidy sitting rooms" and home utilities including a lounge, "cable ready", power-shower and an electric shower on "KENSAL RD Kensington". From the photo you might get the impression that the kitchen has a microwave where the oven should be and only has two hobs, but Georgia assures me there are in fact three hobs and an oven just to the left of the photo. Georgia has even removed the ad from Gumtree for you (nothing to do with it being reported as a scam of course), works for Credit Suisse Group and will email you a tenancy agreement. She will fly back from Spain to show you around just as soon as you send her a copy of a Western Union receipt to prove you have the £1000 deposit available. What a nice round number!

Queensgate Berry <berryqueensgate@yahoo.com>

Queensgate Berry will address you as "my dear", sign himself "Mr.Alan" and has a lovely 2 bed property suitable for 2-6 persons (each bedroom being suitable for three students apparently) in South Kensington with "Cable/Satellite CCTV" and a garage at a total of just £200pw! Including all bills! According to the "Landlord Association" rules, "due to past/bad experiences with the other landlords" and as "there is also a fine of 5000pounds if we don't go through the rules and regulations" all you have to do is forward a MoneyGram receipt of £1300 to Mr Alan to prove you have the funds available. Mr Alan's phone number is 07024031949, note that 070 numbers are premium rate numbers, not mobiles.

If you encounter any of these illustrious people or one of their ilk you may be interested in a fake Western Union or MoneyGram receipt generator or a page of useful scam baiting links.

Hendry Kai Ian Car Sale Scam

If you are a (potential) victim of this scam please email: frauddesk@cityoflondon.police.uk.

Some general rules to live your life by:

• If it seems to good to be true then it probably is.
  
• If it quacks like a scam, swims like a scam and waddles like a scam then it's probably a scam.
  
• Even if the deal is reeeeeeeeeeeally good.
  
• Especially if the deal is really good.
  
• Especially if they are selling a new VW Bora in excellent condition for "4000EUR".
  

Things that should raise suspicions:

• A seller does not seem to know which way around their own names should go, for example, Hendry is a surname and Ian is a first name , not vice versa.
  
• You google the person, and find a big fucking warning in RED and YELLOW on their homepage warning idiots people like you not to fall for the scam.
  
• Complicated stories that involve selling goods internationally, eg, I am on business in KENTUCKY USA and I need the iPhone for my son who is in Lagos Nigera... etc, or, the car is in London but for some reason I am selling it on a German website to German users only. See also below.
  
• Random capitalised words, eg: "YOU will ask a friend to come with you to Western Union Office. HE will make a transfer so that HE will be the sender and YOU will be the receiver. YOU will receive the money from Western Union in UK,London"
  
• Native English speakers making simple errors, eg: "If you are not agree with this depozit i will not have eny problem, you can come to my when you want i dont have problem but i will not keep the car for you until you are here..Let me explain to you way i want this depozit:" (Ironically there is a distinct lack of capitalisation here, as well as uses of Z and missing As that wouldn't even be acceptable in America.)
  

Things not to trust on the internet:

• Images of passports. This does not prove anything apart from the fact that the seller has a picture of a passport. That image may have been doctored, the passport may not be real, or they may have just found a picture of someone else's passport that they rather inadvisedly put on flickr.
  
• Western Union. It seems that it is very easy to retrieve money from Western Union that is not meant for you.

UPDATE: If you want to scam the scammers a fake Western Union receipt might be in order.

UPDATE: Apparently Mr. Hendry Kai Ian is now offering a BMZ Z4 Cabrio for €5500. Yes, it's still a scam, no matter how much you wish it wasn't.

UPDATE: And a Jeep Wrangler.

www.supportonclick.com Scam Update

Happened to find this brief, interesting description of what I believe to be the same computer support phone scam that was attempted on my mother a few weeks ago.

www.supportonclick.com Scam

My mum had a call the other day from someone claiming to know that her computer was slow and/or had a virus. By unfortunate coincidence when she turned on her computer the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage popup popped up, making her think there might be something in the call. Fortunately she was genuinely busy, asked them to call back and called me. My first thought was who would have her number? Certainly not Microsoft. Possibly her ISP, who, unless they were being extremely vigilant, would be very unlikely to call her about computer problems. After a bit of googling I decided it was probably this scam. Today they called back, and sure enough mentioned the website/company that Staffordshire trading standards warned against, www.supportonclick.com.

Also see my update.

UPDATE: Several comments on this post claim that SupportOnClick is genuine, it's not, and my mother is still receiving calls from them despite the fact that there is nothing wrong with her computer and she has asked them not to call her. I am now going to close comments on this post, but if anyone from SupportOnClick would like to contact me, or sue me, I would welcome their comments, and an explanation as to why my mother is still being harassed.

There is now a series of videos on YouTube chronicling one of these calls. It's pretty boring to be honest, it starts to get interesting with the third video.

UPDATE March 2010: My girlfriend's dad has now also had this happen to him, he was instructed to install TeamViewer and told he could call them back on 02033185274.

UPDATE: This has now reached BBC News. And I missed this original story from the register.

Beware The 070 Number

Having received the following in reply to my bike ad and exchanging a couple more emails I eventually called the number, what harm can it do I thought?

My Name is Mr Frank Moore am an Australian based in Hawthorn Terrace DURHAM UNITED KINGDOM.I saw your advert that you have a bike for sale am interested in buying the bike from you i will like to know the mechanical history bike.I can't download the pictures from the site kindly furnish me with more picture's of the bike so that i can have a view and make up my mind on it.Am buying the bike for my Son as a birthday gift and my Son his presently in South Africa practicing as a Medical Doctor.you can ring me on 07031856882 or email:moore.fm@gmail.com. Regards Frank

Well it turns out that 070 numbers are not mobile numbers, they're "personal" numbers, that can cost up to 50p a minute. I wish I'd googled for that particular number earlier, having found this, which sounds strangely familiar:

My Name is Mr Dennis Wilson am an Swedish based in DURHAM UNITED KINGDOM.I saw your advert on internet that you have a pup for sale am interested in buying the pup from you i will like to know the health condition of the pup,Is the pet KC registered?furnish me with more picture's of the pup so that i can make up my mind on it as am buying the pup for my Son as a birthday gift and my Son his presently in South Africa practicing as a Medical Doctor.you can ring me on 07031856882 or email:dw.wilson007@gmail.com. Regards Dennis