Is this a fraud using moneybookers escrow?

[Sproet]

And he's back on the same website!

http://www.immoweb.be/nl/Rent.estate.cf ... g=N#onglet

[Ketmoss]

Hi everyone,

I just found a similar ripoff proposing a wonderful flat in Strasbourg at an astonishingly low price... Curious as I am, I wanted to find out more about the deal!
Thanks to your comments and reports guys I soon discovered that the picture wasn't that lovely! The process is the same as described earlier by other members of the forum: sending money via moneybookers, having the keys and tenancy agreements sent over to your home and waiting for your money to go straight into some d***head's pocket!

The thief is using the following email address: jessicapatterson65@live.com


So please be careful!

[dieterization]

Dear Forum Poster.
I'm here to inform you from escrow fraud happening in Belgium.
Recently me and my girlfriend are looking for a place to start our own life.
Without the knowledge of these frauds finding place we found a nice apartment located in Genk. for 300 euro's... almost too beautifull to be true. We found this add on immoweb and send an email to the person in charge of the apartment.
the next day we received an email from the person and started talking. he said he was from the UK, but his english wasnt that good (either is mine, but anyway..). Since i'm a web developer i always need to look for glitches so scammers or spammers dont have a chance to attack the customers. that way i started to look at his mistakes and found out this was one BIG scam. For example: his name was BENJAMIN PATRICK. But his email address was benajminpatricks@yahoo.com. Notice the name misspell. That wasnt normal for me. I never seen some make a typo in his personal email address. To move on... he never responded correct on my questions. it never felt like a "normal" conversation.
He kept pushing us to speed everything up because he wanted to take care of this matter rigth away.
When i went back to immoweb to look at the pictures the add was deleted. Luckly he gave me the address of the place and i googled it. I found the apartment on hebbes.be and noticed the pictures wer different from the ones on immoweb! Also on hebbes.be the rent price was 600 instead of 300. i Didnt like it at all and kept him on the line. To get as much info i could from him. Then he gave himself away with my last question..."Is it possible to get some pictures from the apartment? And where are you from? It's just to get some trust from the person i'm renting from." He answerd my question in the mail subject, not the mail content. At that point with my IT experience i knew he was a scammer.
I want to warn u all to look at the details if you get a mail from someone. For gods sake i luckly looked at the details and noticed it was scam, i don't want me and my girlfriend to begin our life like this. These basterds show no respect for other people, dont show them respect back.

I will now post some of the emails he send below , and you can see they are almost the same as the one on the other posts. Thanks you for listening to my story and i hope you will read this on time.

[dieterization]

Mail1:

Hello,

First of all I'm sorry for the late reply but I had a lot to work and this is the time I could give you a message. From the site add,you could see, that the apartment located in: Weg naar As 19, 3600 Genk. It has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathrooms ( 102 m2 ).I am looking for someone to live in it, as soon as possible, because my company has won the auction for a project, in construction, for a building that will rise up in Madrid, Spain. I am a civil engineer, so my accommodation period in Spain will be about 4 years. The renting period is maximum 4 years. As a result of this I want to rent, for this period, at this price and also to find the perfect person for my apartment. I`m the owner of the apt and it's like in the pics. The apartment is furnished, but I have the option of sending all my furniture into storage if you want to bring your own (no extra costs). The rent for 1 month is 300 Euro, but you must to deposit 600 euro ( 1 month + 300 EUR deposit that you will receive it back when you will go out from apartment for the whole apartment) including all utilities (water, electricity, Internet, cable, parking, air conditioning, fireplace,dishwasher, garbage disposal, microwave, refrigerator). You can move in the apt in the same day when you receive the keys. The only problem is that I`m the only person who has the keys but I hope that we will find a solution.
Thank you for your interest and I will look forward to hearing from you soon.
Good luck,

Benjamin Patrick

P.S. Please tell me if this is what are you looking for and reply my only if you are truly interested in the apartment

[dieterization]

Mail2:

Thank you for your reply but the matter is that I'm in Liverpool already. The rent for 1 month is 300 Euro, but you must to deposit 600 euro ( 1 month + 1 month deposit for the whole apartment) including all utilities (water, electricity, Internet, cable, parking, air conditioning, fireplace,dishwasher, garbage disposal, microwave, refrigerator). The money, I want to revive it monthly to my bank account, so I hope it will be no problem for you to wire the money to my bank account. The apartment is ready for you, you will need only to receive the keys and the contract to check it, and see if you like it. Obviously we need a way to complete this deal, that will allow us to make sure we receive what we are after. In order of that I have found a way for us to complete the deal safely and fast, and in this way you will receive the Keys in less than 2 days, if you move fast as well. The solution is provided by a company called MoneyBookers which is similar to FedEx or UPS, which will handle both payment and delivery of the Keys. I have found a procedure that will allow you to pay for the rent of the apt only after you will receive the keys of it and through this way you will see it and decide if you will stay in the apt or not before I receive my payment. Please click on the link bellow to the MoneyBookers website to see how we can complete the deal safely and fast directly from the website of the company where the procedure is explained: https://www.moneybookers.com/app/help.pl?s=escrow&l=EN
Let me know if you are interested please because I really need to take care of this matter

[dieterization]

The last mail i can't post because of some forum error. but it has the steps explaned what i should do to complete the transaction with the money.

[peg]

The last mail i can't post because of some forum error. but it has the steps explaned what i should do to complete the transaction with the money.

Typically the "Forum Errors" are a result of characters that are not part of the UTF-8 set. Apparently phpbb doesn't handle "Accented" characters very well (or some others I am sure).

Anyway, you can try and sanitize the "Odd" characters or you can send them to me and I can post it for you. You can use the feedback system ( http://escrow-fraud.com/index.php?page=feedback ) or you can email me (escrow-fraud AT escrow-fraud DOT com )

[qdb]

Same thing happened to me recently. I am from Poland. Here's what they wrote to me:

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in having my place for rent; it has 2 Bedroom and 2 bath and fully equipped kitchen and it's situated on: Bialy Kamien, Warszawa, Mazowieckie, Polska
I have moved to London, United Kingdom, about 4 months ago, with my husband, when I accepted my new job. I decided to keep the place because I wanted to have a comfortable and familiar place to stay when I will get back so I decided not sell it, I will just rent while I'm London. It may take up to 5 years. I will solicit for your absolute maintenance of the place and want you to treat it as your own.
The money are not the main problem I am looking for a responsible person that can take care of property. The place is available and it has not been rented before. You can rent it for the period of time suitable for you of course. You can start with a basic 3 months and we can renew the agreement any time you want.
I'm being selective so please send a description of what you do and why I should rent the place and anything else that might give you the upper hand. The Tenancy Agreement form will be forwarded to you, which would guarantee your entry to the place on the day of your arrival.
The rent for 1 month is 2.200zl including all utilities (water, electricity, Internet, cable, 2 parking spots, air conditioning). You can move in the apt in the same day when you receive the keys. I have ready all the necessary rental documents. The only problem is that I'm the only person who has the keys but I hope that we will find a way to solve this situation. I will really appreciate a response if you decide to rent the place.
Above all things, this is a great place and opportunity for someone. Hope to hear back from you soon!

[qdb]

Next message was about details how to "solve situation" with keys.

Hello,
I am very happy that I speak with such a reliable person. I have a very busy schedule at my office and I really can't come to meet you. I can deliver you the apartment keys by mail and you can visit it. The rent period is between 2 months and 5 years.
The deposit will not be necessary. We will use the services of Money Bookers, who will be in charged of payment and the delivery of the keys.
Here's my suggestion:
* To start this transaction i will need to know your full shipping information, full name, full shipping address to proceed with this deal .
* A soon as I got your e-mail I will go to Money Bookers to theposit the apartment keys on your name and address. Then they will send you a e-mail with a payment invoice for 1 month rent.
* Your money will be kept by Money Bookers in their safe account.
* A soon as Money Bookers will receive the money from you, they will send me a e-mail for confirmation.
* I will proceed with delivery of apartment keys.
* You will receive the keys of apartment, visit it and e-mail me if everything is okay
* After I get from you the acknowledgment that my apartment will fit to you, I will contact a local notary for the rent contract.
* I will send you, by mail, the original contract for signing.
* You will sign the contract and keep one contract for you and one contract you will have to mail me back to London.
* After everything is complete you will have to e-mail Money Bookers to confirm that all is okay so they can transfer the money to my bank account.
I hope you will agree with my suggestion.
Cheers!

[qdb]

After that I got one more email which claimed to be from MoneyBookers. But it was sent from strange email address: services@moneybookers-rentals.com. Email was saying I need to pay money with Western Union to specified address in London. It was obviously a fake. MoneyBookers' main business is to process online payments, so why would they want me to use Western Unoin instead of their services?

Person who contacted me regarding rental offer was Adriana Delgado. She was using email address: adrianagdo@gmail.com