As if the poor US economy hasn’t dealt the real estate market a bad enough blow, it is also a primary target for the Nigerian Scam industry. No, this is not a new scam! It is just a scam that seams to regenerate itself and become more prominent with the surplus of houses available for sale and sitting empty.

This scam is very real, and while this article is quite long, I recommend you read it all the way through. I even have a few recommendations for the National Association of Realtors to significantly reduce the ease of running this scam.

Here is one version of the “For Rent Scam” I found, just yesterday:

Craigslist caught this one and took the link (http://cedarrapids.craigslist.org/apa/1638375669.html) down, but how many people saw it before it was caught?

If you use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to access web sites, and you use Google to search, this listing can still be found with the use of advance search settings and using the “Page Preview” option. This is because the URL has already been indexed by Google’s web crawlers and indexing tools.

I found this listing on Craigslist and was interested. I started looking through other resources to find this property, just to see if it was a legitimate offer.

I checked Realtor.com and found that this house was actually for sale by a local RE/MAX agent.

After reading the information available on Realtor.com, I went to the RE/MAX web site to see if there was any more information, available.

While there were some noticeable differences in the presentation of the property between these two pages, the information was basically the same.

Finally, I checked the local assessor’s page for any information they would have on file for this property. Here I found the name of the Deed Holder, a list of permits pulled for various things, a Plat Map, and a very specific description of the property.

All this research provided me with a lot of information. Between just those three sites, I was able to get all of the following information:

• Owner’s Name
• Legal Description
• Size of Property
• Residential Dwelling details (I.E. Style, Exterior Material, Living Area, Number of Rooms, Basement type, & etc.)
• Year Built
• Tax Assessments
• Dollar amount the property sold for in past 10 years
• All permits obtained for Construction, Repairs & Fencing.
• A 2-D architectural sketch (blue-print) of the structure.

While considered public information, it was used to make this property an easy target for the “For Rent” scam. All the pictures show this house completely empty and vacated. There are no vehicles sitting in the driveway or street. Pictures show the blinds have been removed from the Windows so you can see right in. You are even told this property is in a quiet neighborhood, in a wooded area on a cul-de-sac.

How much more information would need to be given before this house is broken into, vandalized or destroyed by criminals? (The obvious answer is NONE!)

How much more information would need to be given before this house, it’s owner(s), potential buyers/renters become the subject of a scam? (You fail if you don’t know the answer is NONE!) It already was the target of a scam.

The scammer took the pictures and description right off the sales sheet. All the work was basically done for the scammer, by the realtor. The criminal only had to copy/paste the info right into the listing on Craigslist.

I decided to have a little fun with the person shown as the point of contact on Craigslist. An email address was given (andresonmark71@yahoo.com) to contact the person putting the house up for rent. SO I DID!

I got a very quick responce…

Thanks for the email. I own the house and also want you to know that it was due to my transfer to ( West Africa , Nigeria ) that makes us to leave the house and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person and God fearing person who can take very good care of the house in my absence.we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean all the time and the person that will rent it to take it as if it were its own..

So for now, I am here in West Africa and will be staying here for the next 6years in our new house and also with the keys of the house for rent, we try to look for an agent that we can give this documents and the keys before we left but could not find, and we as well do not want our house to be used any how in our absence that is why we took it along with us.You can see a foresale sing i want you to know that i and my wife have wanted to sell the property but when we see that we are transfer so we decided not to sell it any more….

We came over to Africa for a missionary work, so i hope you will promise us that you will take very good care of the house. So get back to me if you know you could take care of our house or perhaps experience you have in renting home.Hope you are okay with the price of $1000 per month and the security Deposit is $400.Get back to me with the rental application form.

Here is the address bellow:

5220 Bent Tree Ct NE, Cedar Rapids IA 52411

4 br | 2 ½ ba | 2,068 sqft | Single-Family Home

PET ALLOWED………….

RENTAL APPLICATION FORM
Rental/Lease Spouse Full Names:
Rental/Lease Kids Full Names:
Rental/Lease Relatives or Friends Full Name:
Rental/Lease Mobile/Cell Number:
Rental/Lease Telephone Number:
Rental/Lease Present House Address:
Rental/Lease Present Work place name and Address:
Rental/Lease Present work Tel. Number:
Rental/Lease Numbers of Cars:
Rental/Lease Pet type:
Rental/Lease proposed date of Move in:
Rental/Lease months budget to deposit before move in:
Rental/Lease Reference contact info:

I had asked some very specific questions about the property, and got a very canned response. The response has a lot of grammatical errors as if the person wasn’t from the US, and even states they reside in NIGERIA now. The scammer even tries to say that the “For Sale” sign currently seen on the property, was something they had tried, but weren’t successful before leaving. They want $400 for a deposit and $1000 a month for rent. They even make a point to say they allow pets, want neat/clean renters, and want the renters to be “GOD FEARING” people.

I also sent another email to this same person, from a different email address. This email was a little more vague in questions about the place, but the response was exactly the same as the one above.

This scam is so prominent Craigslist has a message at the top of every “For Rent” post. It says: “Avoid scams and fraud by dealing locally! Beware any arrangement involving Western Union, Moneygram, wire transfer, or a landlord/owner who is out of the country or cannot meet you in person.” They even give a “More Info” link to read up on scenarios.

While this scam was the idea of some scandalous Nigerian, there were no systems in place to prevent it from happening, and if there were, they failed. We don’t even have any way of telling if there were any people who fell for this elaborate scam. It is obvious that computer and web technology were used to operate this scam, but none of that same computer and web technology was used to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

In my opinion, the failure started with Yahoo. It was after all, a Yahoo email address used to run the scam. Someone’s email was either hacked or Yahoo simply allowed the person to sign up for a free account with zero identification verification.

The failure continued with Craigslist. Craigslist allowed the Yahoo email address to be used to create an account and list the property for rent, without verifying the identity of the person creating the account.

The US Government, the State of Iowa, the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Assessor’s Office, various real estate companies, the National Association of Realtors, the Iowa Association of Realtors and the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Association of Realtors all had a role in making this scam possible. There are no safeguards on who can access what property information at any of these seven organizational levels. This scam could have been prevented at each of these six organizational levels, but wasn’t.

I have a few recommendations for the National Association of Realtors and any real estate companies to significantly reduce the ease of running this scam. I’d be happy to share my ideas, if any of the Association of Realtors branches/levels wants to contact me about them. I even make it easy to get in touch with me. Just use the CONTACT US link in the menu to get in touch with me.

Filed under: For Rent Scams, Nigerian Scams, Real Estate Scams, Scams | No Comments »

The 90# Telephone Scam is not a real service call from your telephone company.

To protect yourself, family, friends and your business from this scam, you need to understand how the 9-0-# scam works and how it applies to you.

The truth about this scam is, it only effects a small group of telephone systems and it is mostly businesses which are vulnerable to this scam. This scam does not generally affect residential or cell phone customers, though it may still be possible as a residential customer to become a target of this scam. For the most part, only businesses, hospitals, government agencies, and other organizations using PBX (Private Branch Exchanges) telephone systems, rather than Centrex lines to handle their calls are the target of this scam.

On some PBX telephone systems, pressing ’9′ activates a signal to obtain an outside line (thus the reason the number ’9′ is part of the sequence you dial). If you have ever worked for any size of company, you have probably come in contact with this feature. If this same PBX telephone system lacks restrictions on outgoing calls, all telephone numbers associated with your system are a potential target!

At this time, the telephone environment outlined in the last paragraph, is the only one AT&T, About.com, the FCC and Snopes have verified where this scam is a threat!

Dialing 9-0-# could transfer a call to an outside operator (’0′ for Operator – thus the reason the number ’0′ is a part of the dialing sequence) and give the scam artist the ability to call anywhere in the world, while charging the call to your business’ phone bill. PLEASE REMEMBER, this scam requires participation on your end of the telephone. This scam only works if the scam artist can trick you into initiating the 9-0-# sequence.

If your company’s telephone system doesn’t require you to dial ’9′ for an outside line the 9-0-# scam does not affect you. Also, if your company’s telephone system prevents or blocks all long distance calls once you have accessed an outside line, the 9-0-# scam will not apply to you.

NO CAUSE FOR PANIC – unless you have to dial ’9′ for an outside line at you home, the 9-0-# scam will not affect your residential telephone service. There are very few residential environments with this ability, though a large apartment complex or large group of condominiums may have one phone system for all units. In this instance, each unit would still have their own telephone number, but may be required to dial ’9′ to get an outside line. If this residential situation applies to you, then you could also be a target of this scam!

PLEASE BE AWARE – The 9-0-# scam could have a few different variations. Newer PBX telephone systems my not require you to specifically dial ’9′ for an outside line. You may need to dial ’9-0′ or ’0-9′ for an outside line. Your phone system may not use the number ’9′ as the code for an outside line. Some PBX telephone systems allow the user to choose the outside line code, and in some systems it could be any series of randomly selected numbers (I.E. 880, 721, 799 or etc.)!

You have to be aware of the situation and what you are being asked over the phone to do. If your phone system uses 9-1-9 for an outside line, then dialing 9-0-# wont activate this scam (however, in this instance, dialing 9-1-9-0-# may still allow the scam to work)!

As long as there is an easy dollar to be made, there will be people trying to rip others off. This has changed for the good in recent years due to stricter telemarketing laws, harsher penalties and enforcement of the National Do Not Call Registry by the FCC and/or FTC. This has all come together to help reduce the number of calls and protect us from those after the quick buck.

Always be suspicious of a telephone call where you are asked to do initiate something on your end. Why would you be asked to do anything with your phone system? Your company will have a telephone technician who is responsible for making modifications or running tests on your phone system. Always defer telephone calls asking to test anything to this person!

If you think you may have been a victim of this telephone scam, call your telephone technician and the administrator of the telephone account. Make sure your telephone company is aware of your suspicion, and always file a report with the police if your were in fact the target of this scam.

If you have a question about this scam or about your phone system Sapphire Solutions can help! Just respond to this post with your question or concern.

If you want to inquire about a new system, changing settings on your existing system or general telecommunications consulting, we can be reached by using the CONTACT US link in the menu to let us know how we can be of assistance.

Filed under: Cellular Telephones, Scams, Telecommunications, Telephone Scams | No Comments »

Ok everyone…

I have written before about several scams I have found. Just recently, I found another one. Yesterday, as I was going through the junk mail, I saw a letter from Automatic Merchandising Services. This letter was addressed to me by first and last name, and included a business card listing my name as the business owner. It also listed major product brands like Dr Pepper, Pringles, 7Up Oreo, Monster, Nestle, Starkist, Hostess and Campbell’s Soup.

Right away, I started searching the internet to see what I could find about the company. You can do your own search on Google by clicking here.

I found a couple articles listed on Rip Off Report.comgiving me an idea about the legitimacy of this business. See them by clicking here or here.

I’m already in a career I love, but something about the letter intrigued me. So, I read more. I’m told about the “fantastic home-based business” I can run part-time while I keep my job. (Gee, Thanks! Really?) They tell me I’m going to get a $1150.00 rebate check if I decide to start in this business, and I don’t even need to bring my checkbook when attending the sales demonstration.

The letter is signed by the National Director L. Printz. They list an 800 number to have my rebate check rushed to me. The phone number (800) 669-8064 is what was listed. I looked it up too, and found a lot more information about other people who had gotten the same letter I did.

The second time around, I saw some fine print at the bottom of the first page. It was shown in italics with an asterisk. It said “Wealth Builders is a service trademark of Planet Antares, Inc. 5700 Buckingham Parkway, Culver City, CA 90230.” This seemed odd to me, as it was the same address listed on the envelope. Digging more, let me to so many more sites with mad people or articles about FTC law suites and so on.

Even the Better Business Bureau has a plethera of complaints listed. See them here.

If you have questions about a business being a scam, Rip Off Report and the Better Business Bureau are the best place to start. If you have problems finding enough information about a business to get an accurate idea of how they operate, feel free contact me by using the CONTACT US link in the menu.

Filed under: Scams | 6 Comments »