Munich apartment rental scam

[ptbo 0]

While searching for an apartment in Munich, I recently found this almost too-good-to-be-true ad:

 

www.wg-gesucht.de / wohnung

 

I sent the fellow an email and got this response back, including several pictures of a very nice apartment.

 

 

Dear sir/ms

 

My name is Peter Shaw I have the 1 room apartment in Munchen for rent. The rent is 350 EUR per month.

 

I had the apartment with my wife because she was german and last year she died in a car accident that we had . I also lost my hearing in the accident. Now I live in London United Kingdom. The apartment is very big due the fact that it is a one room apartment and it is in a nice area of Munhen. I have received another offers today about 50 proposals and I want yo to know that I only let the apartment if you pay in advance the rent for three months.

 

Thank you

I wrote back, telling him I would be able to pay three months in advance and I recieved the following email in response.

 

 

I rent the apartment for unlimited time. I am in London as I have told you. The apartment is very beutifull it has new furniture modern from Milan The key to the apartment is here with me. I will come and give you the key and we will make the contract. I will think of a solution for this because I don't want to come for nothing and to loose my time or yours. As I have told you I have received many offers so it is hard for me to decide. I told you that I lost my hearing and since than I have to go to the hospital every week and I will have little time to spend in Germany because of that.

 

Thank you

 

Please email me to keep me informed about your free time .

I'll admit I got pretty excited (for a minute) but clearly something is fishy here. The bad (Germanified) English, the very low price, the flying to Germany to hand the key over bit, etc...

 

So, I googled an excerpt from his messages and found this German forum...

 

www.telefon-treff.de / t-181669

 

...where some girl describes the same thing (including identical emails) but with different prices. Turns out that in the end the guy wanted the girl to acquire the key through an escrow-service, which she didn't do.

 

So, having found the german post I now have no doubt that this is a scam - watch out!

 

Has anyone else seen this before?

[inka 8]

Yep, I ran across this one too, and looking at the pictures of the flat, the price, and the location, I knew it had to be too good to be true. I emailed the guy out of total curiosity, and got the exact same response. Instinct told me it was a scam. Glad I'm not the only one!

[clepto 110]

I thought I saw an ad by Peter Shaw in TT today, but now I can't find him in the member's listing.

[eurovol 126]

That name does ring a bell.

[Darkknight 2,305]

Dear Mr/Ms PTBO

 

Please let me introduce myself. My name is Otto vonschpammer I am a licensed real estate broker in the country of Bavaria. My office saw your request for housing in the munich area and would like to offer you our services. Recently one of our large clients had the misfortune of going thru a very bad divorce and he needs to rent out some his apartments in the munich area to cover lawyer costs.

 

My client is willing to let you rent one of his apartments in the munich area for 150 Euros a month. before I can give you the address or pictures of the apartment I require a brokers fee of 1500 Eur. in the form of a western union money transfer. This covers my services and the contract process nigoation process.

 

If you are intrested please email me back and I will provide you with the info you need to send the xfer. Please remember that this is a very good deal and might not be avail. for too long, so you MUST act fast to secure your place.

 

Sincerly

 

Mr. Otto von Shpammer..

 

For a real funny site checkout 419 Eater

[Editor Bob 3,377]

@ptbo

 

Look at the IP addresses in the headers of the email you received. You will be able to tell from these where this "Peter Shaw" guy is really located - i.e. UK or Munich/Germany.

 

If you're not familiar with IP tracing, instead post the complete email here (including headers) and we'll trace it for you.

[ptbo 0]

I got the final response from "Peter Shaw" this morning. Here it is.

 

I have received many other offers so I don't know what to choose. I don't want to make a trip for nothing and not to find you there and loose time. I also don't want to loose your time either. Three weeks ago I have received also many offers to rent it, one person told me to come to show him the apartment and to make the rent papers. I have took a plane and I arived in Germany the next day.

 

I showed the apartment to that person and he was inpresed but he told me that he has the money for one month in advance and that I have to wait another two months to pay me the rest. I lost my time this way and money on flights. I also go here in London at the hospital twice a week so I can't stay for a long time in Germany. Here is what I propose: Make the transfer using western union on a Friend Name or to a Family Member of yours for the 3 months rent and reply with the western union scaned receipt jpg format. This way I will be sure that you have the money to pay me in advance and also that will not loose my time and that I will not make the trip for nothing.

 

I will expect the scaned receipt and we will arange a meeting a soon after that. We will go and see the apartment and after that we will go to pick up the money from the western union. (this means that the friend or relative must be with you at that time)

Presumably, a western union reciept has some value.

 

@ Editor Bob

 

Here are the pertinent lines from the header of the email

 

Received: from web60413.mail.yahoo.com (209.73.178.156)

 

Received: from [64.12.116.134] by web60413.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 27 Oct 2005 15:27:01 PDT

Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 15:27:01 -0700 (PDT)

From: w30g <w30g@yahoo.com>

I searched the two IP numbers and they are both from the US, the top one is from California and the bottom one is from Virginia.

[mothbola 9]

Is there not a way to pass this information to the correct authorities, who can then attempt to catch this low life ?

[brokenm 37]

I don't know..it sounds like a good deal.

[gideon 137]

mail him back and ask him to give you the telephone number of the hausmeister who will have a key to let you in and show you the flat. also tell him your bank has asked for a police check which you find silly but they wont allow a money transfer untill this has happen. spin hinm along for the fun of it. waste his time.

[Topsy 35]

how can you be so sure that the guy is dodgy?

did i miss something? :unsure:

[ptbo 0]

@Topsy

 

When I found the nearly identical emails posted on the German forum, they were discussing a house rental for 500€, not an apartment for 350€. Therefore - scam.

[eurovol 126]

Western Union has the money, he has a photocopy of all the relevent info. He and his buddies make a forgery with all the right numbers and voila, he has your money.

[Rizzo 16]

Let's all e-mail him and tell him we're interested. He'll think its his birthday.

 

Alternatively tell him you went to have an external look at he property this morning and you're no longer interested as there was smoke billowing from the windows.

[Editor Bob 3,377]

The relevant IP address in those headers you posted is this one: 64.12.116.134

 

It resolves to cache-mtc-ac05.proxy.aol.com which tells you that our friend is using America Online (AOL). Unfortunately this makes it impossible for us to determine which country he is in. All AOL users are routed via the AOL proxies in the States, regardless of which country they're logging in from. In this case the proxy is in Virginia - as you already saw for yourself.

 

The California IP's you saw are just the addresses for Yahoo! and are irrelevant.

 

One would guess, of course, that he's in Germany. And he clearly knows what he's doing regarding covering his traces.

[Tom17 37]

It has scam written all over it.. He just wants to go into western union with the details from the receipt and try to get your money.

 

So who would be in trouble for fraud if you send him a fake but realistic Western Union reciept? The scammer (him) or the original forger (the person he's trying to scam). If him then its almost worth doing just to string him along

[Saz 3]

@ Topsy

An apartment for €350 pcm in Munich? A scam?

If you read the property section in your paper and compare the prices, you might warm with the idea of these emails being part of a scam.

And advance payments without a contract are usually a tell tale sign of a scam (see Nigeria connection).

 

Anyway, you can pass the emails on to your local cop shop and if they're in a good mood, they'll pass it on to the scam section of the Kripo.

[sarabyrd 18,767]

 

Alternatively tell him you went to have an external look at he property this morning and you're no longer interested as there was smoke billowing from the windows.

Brilliant! :lol:

[HelterSkelter 30]

2 month ago I came across this Peter Shaw too... friend of mine was looking for a flat, found his ad on immobilienscout24 and sent it over for my opinion. Think it was like 500,-- a month for a completely renovated, fully top-of the-notch equipped and funitured 120qm apppartment in Maxvorstadt on Schellingstraße but you'ld need to pay him 1500,-- in advance... of course I got a bit suspicious and looked up his email (which even had immobilienscout24 in there) and found a Saudi-Arabien e-mail provider. Called immobilienscout24, told them the story and what a surprise: he is no stranger to the scout24 people... he does the same thing with cars, jobs, properties... whatever! Even the story is the same all the time... german wife - killed in accident - living in UK again...

 

So whenever you read Peter Shaw... don't fall for his crap!

[6784kqe 10]

You'd think Peter would pick another name...