主题：充当房东--骗子的新招数 -- redbud

近我在找房子搬家，看了很多房子都不满意，主要装修什么的太差了。

就在你痛苦绝望以为找不到房子的时候，有好消息突然进入眼睛。我去Gumtree上面转了转，看到一个房子，完美豪华无比，一流装修品位。市中心的位置，非常方便。只要480镑，所有的bill全包，council tax, broadband, TV, 等等，我对这些不感兴趣，倒是对于他贴的那个房子的装修感兴趣，那就是我理想中的高品位装修。我一下子就心动了，说，如果是真的，我想签合同。然后他说，他在丹麦，过来必须订机票，为了确保我是诚心的，他需要我从western union转钱到一个熟人的账户上面，然后提供给他一些转钱的照片什么的，确认我有钱付款。最后呢，我们见面谈合同的时候，我要用现金付钱，从western union里面取钱出来，这是他的信。

Hello,

We could meet and maybe sign the tenancy agreement on Sunday but you see these is due to previous predicament that I have gone through in the past trying to rent the property to some students,I have got to realize so many people are not really in need of an apartment all they do is secure a place in advance, My last experience in trying to rent the property to a particular lady had got me to predicate on these,she made me believe she was willing and ready to get the apartment she even went to the extend of showing me her statement of account,which made me took her for the viewing but after taking her for the viewing,she saw the apartment and got to love it and never wanted to loose it,so she kept pleading i retain it for her because she is not financially composed at the moment,which i did but end up disastrously.

So basically for me to be sure of you been willing and ready to get the apartment I will employ you walk into any Western Union agency and send the total bill cash ￡1440(two months rent and one month refundable deposit) to one of your friend's name, to whoever you want, whoever you trust (NOT to ME) with location of any other city in UK,All I need is for you to get back to me with the receipt issued to you after making the transaction so I can confirm it! When we will meet in person to sign the papers we will go together to Western Union and you will withdraw the cash and pay me in hand or you can pay me on Monday by bank transfer! I just need to see that you do have the money available and you do have serious intentions in renting the flat! If the Western Union agent will ask you about the receiver you should tell him that is a relative of yours because the transfer fees will be cheaper! If you will tell them the reason they might consider this a commercial transaction and charge you more. Anyway I will pay for it either you take the flat or not! I will book the flight for Sunday as soon as I have your positive answer !

I do apologise for that but as I told you last time when I arrived to ×××× to show the flat to a person everything was a stupid joke and I hope you understand me because I don`t want to waste my time and money on plane tickets..

Regards

我一听到western union就感觉这有点不靠谱，想起以前收到的诈骗邮件，因为所有的骗子发的电子邮件都是提到从western union转钱的。不过当时我还没怀疑。早上我亲自跑到了他说的那个区去看了一下，跟他描述的很不一样，比如他提到专门的停车位，根本就没有，我跟周围住在那里的人聊了聊。另外，他提到那个公寓是公共管理的花园，也根本就没有。当时我就觉得有点疑心，但是还是觉得可以试试。于是我就去找western union，偏偏我查到了好几个这个城市里的western union点，跑了一上午，一个也没找到，累的我半死。当时就觉得可能这房子不该让我租吧。不过，我还是取了3个月房租的现金带着，准备去转钱，我想，通过western union转给我自己总是可以的。

我下午看完房子，找到最后一个可能的western union点，也是死活找不到，不过，我祷告了一下，有一个想法，为什么不给我那位闺蜜打电话呢，就是那位大美女闺蜜，在工作上教了我很多，我们生日就差一天的，她接到我的电话就笑了一番，说，亏你还记得给我打个电话，要不然钱又被骗走了吧。我一听这个就是骗子，她这么一说，我也突然清醒过来了，可不是么，我那些早期的怀疑突然都清醒过来了。这就是个骗子，我昨天问他要照片，要背景信息，他都没有回应，就单单对转钱这件事情感兴趣。还有他的一些反映也比较奇怪，对于自己的房子不在意，对于其他的也不在意，就是在意钱。当然，房子的那些细节都对不上。

另外，这么好的房子，为什么不让中介管理呢？以后就注意了，something too good to be true，一般都有骗局在里面。为什么他描述说，自己的房子很好，看过的人都是临时就反悔呢？说明他的房子的确有问题。

晚上回来，我告诉那人，他的房子我不看了，western union找不到，我真的很努力地去找了，我建议他要将自己的房子租出去，还是交给中介好了。他马上回信说我是骗子，playing in the beginning，骗子就是这么没风度啊，这是他的信。

Yea right, all the western union has vanished, I knew from the beginning that you were only playing and that you are not serious about it. That is why I ask for this receipt, for people like you, I don't know why you do such things, if you don't have the money just say so

正式确认，此人骗子一个！！！！！

然后我打电话给同事，她说我看房走了之后，她将我描述的这个故事跟她爸爸说了一下，他爸爸对这样的事情很关注，BBC Watchdog报到过以房东的名义骗钱的事情。所以以后遇到的奇怪的事情，都要关注和搜索一下。

吃饭的时候，我用手机查了一下BBC watchdog, Landlord Scam，果然，下面BBC Watchdog那里就有描述，骗子让你把钱转给自己，把收据发给他们，然后他们根据你发给他们的收据，伪造一张提钱的单子，然后将钱提走。一身冷汗，跟这个自称的丹麦人的招式太像了。

Flat-hunter's transfer trap

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2008/10/flathunters_transfer_trap.html

Every year thousands of people search the classified adverts looking for a place to rent, but Watchdog has received lots of complaints from viewers who've been scammed out of hundreds, even thousands of pounds while looking for a new home.

Lazaros Kesoglou came to the UK from Greece three weeks ago. He thought he'd secured a rented room in a shared flat in London's Holborn from a woman called Emily Brown. As soon as he arrived in the UK he went to the flat. It was only then that Lazaros learned Emily didn't live there and the flat was actually owned by someone else. It wasn't for rent at all and the Emily Brown he thought he was dealing with probably doesn't even exist.

It gets worse. Before he arrived in the UK, Emily had asked Lazaros to prove he had the funds to pay for the flat. To do this, she asked him to use Western Union to transfer the first month's rent and the deposit to someone he knew - even to himself if he wanted. All Emily wanted to see was the receipt for the transfer which would show Lazaros did actually have enough money. So Lazoros transferred ￡660 to himself and sent Emily the receipt as she requested. When Lazaros discovered that his flat wasn't for rent, and that Emily Brown didn't exist, he went back to Western Union to retrieve his ￡660. But it had gone. Someone had already withdrawn the money.

Western Union is the biggest money transfer company in the UK and therefore most of our case studies have used Western Union to transfer money.

Nineteen-year-old Alexandra Sheppard saw a flat on the internet site Gumtree. She too was asked for proof of funds and sent ￡1,350 to her sister via Western Union. When they went to retrieve the money four days later it had gone.

Andrea Crookes and her daughter Nicola Mason were taken in too, after Nicola got a new job in London. When Nicola arrived at the flat she thought she'd rented in Islington, there was no one to meet her. She asked at the shop downstairs but they were sure that somebody else lived there.

As usual, Nicola had been asked for proof she'd be able to pay the rent. So her mum had transferred ￡1,100 to her via Western Union. When she went to get it back, that money had already been collected.

So how is the scam working?

It's thought scammers use the details on the receipt sent to them to create a fake ID in order to pick up the money. The scammers' email addresses were traced back to Nigeria so they may even be receiving the money from one of the 320,000 Western Union branches around the world and not even from the UK.

Tom Craig is a counter fraud expert. He's not surprised that the scammers have taken advantage of Western Union as the scammers can't be traced: "Basically it's moving cash. You can't really identify the end receiver. Although you should but you can't. It's just like giving cash away."

Western Union told Watchdog that it's important that customers "observe the clear guidance and don't share private information such as transaction numbers or copies of the documentation related to a person to person money transfer with any other party".

Western Union stresses that although it does, with police, investigate all reported cases of fraud, it can't refund any money that's been stolen. It's confident it has a "robust fraud prevention programme" in place, but points out that consumers "are and always will be the first and best line of defence against consumer fraud, especially when it comes to protecting and safeguarding their personal data and identity information".

When we contacted Gumtree about the scam it told us that it's an "industry-wide problem that affects a small number of our users". It says that "Gumtree is meant for connecting local people to then trade face-to-face" and that it has "boosted the prominence of our safety messages in the rentals section". Gumtree told us that it has "systems in place to prevent known fraudsters from using the site and also to identify potentially fraudulent activity".

• 【原创】西河的那些才子佳人