Anyone for Spam, Scam and Eggs? I'm looking to take orders!
You remember Spam, a side dish served in many family homes years ago. Actually, Spam can still be found today in grocery stores on their shelves. Evidently, it can be found in other places too. Let me break this down for you.
Very early this morning I awoke to a phone message from a potential buyer who had been looking for a rental property to rent. She had left a message on my cell phone regarding this particular property. Prior to this phone call, I received a similar one yesterday asking about my rental property. The caller said they found it on Craigslist and wanted more information. Wow, what a wake up call for me, I didn't even realize my property was for rent, at a bargain price no less. Oh, and did I tell you it was my actual home. Then it hit me "Whack on the side of the head" -what was going on here?
I returned the phone call this morning to the person. We got to talking and I found out that she had received an email from a person (disguising himself as my husband - using his name in an email). Here is a "snipit" of this scammer.....
"I thank you for your response concerning the AD I posted on Craig list. I am the owner of the house you are making inquiry of. Actually i resided in the house with my family, such as my wife and my only daughter before and presently we had packed due to my transfer from my working place and now situated in the (West Africa Nigeria) and presently my house is still available for rent. Including the utilities like hydro, washer and security, it is furnished but if u which to move in with your furnishes no problem. Please I want you to note that I am a kind and honest and also i spent a lot on my property that i want to give you for rent, i will want you to take absolute maintenance of my house and want you to treat it as your own, money is not the most important thing but i want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i come for a check up. SO IF YOU ARE REALLY INTERESTED I WILL WANT YOU TO FILL THE RENTAL APPLICATION FORM BELOW"...
Do you believe this spammer/scammer... first of all I don't have a daughter, secondly my husband was not transferred to Nigeria... he is retired. In addition, they asked to have money sent from the potential buyer. Now I wasn't born yesterday. I have seen similar situations with emails of this sort. But when it hits so close to home - it's a scary situation. Thank goodness this potential buyer was inquisitive enough to google my listing and called me to tell me this was going on. We did a little investigation on our own and found similar listings being spammed/scammed. We did in fact call some other Realtors to tell them hey be careful and check this out.
Craigslist can be a great advertising tool, but this is not the first time I have heard of similar things taking place on Craigslist. We immediately took some precautions. We found the actual posting on Craigslist, clicked on the appropriate category, found the posting, clicked on the posting to open it. A box appeared on the upper right and selected the option Spam/Overpost. This will alert Craigslist there is an issue with this posting.
Although the day didn't start out great, I had a wonderful conversation with this new found friend. So actually my Glass that was half empty turned into a glass more than half full a new found friendship with a potential for a new client.
Your comments and suggestions are always welcomed. Spam picture provided by crunchgear.com. Video provided by YouTube!
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