Something I should be cautious about?

Wizard!

Hi all!

I am looking for a house/apt and found one that seems too good to be true. Pretty nice and cheap comparing to similar. The guy who is supposed to own the apartment lives in London, so he send me the following email message.

Hi,

Thank you for your reply but the matter is that I'm in London already. Like I have inform you before, the price you shall pay for one month of rent will be 500EURO, with no extra taxes to pay. The security deposit is 1000EURO. 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 3 days, if you move fast as well. The solution is provided by a company called UPS which is similar to FedEx, DHL or TNT, 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 UPS website to see how we can complete the deal safely and fast directly from the website of the company where the procedure is explained: http://www.ups.com/content/gb/en/shipping/index.html?WT.svl=PriNav
Let me know if you are interested please because I really need to take care of this matter by the end of this week or the beginning of the next one.

Is there something I should be cautious about? Some kind of con? The link in UPS's site is general, and does not describe a procedure he is talking about.

ec18

I'd be cautious purely for the bad spelling and grammar in it

Chemical Byrne

Yes, of course it's a con. It reads like a typical Nigerian scam. "Wire the moneys" ffs. What will happen here is he will not look for rent before giving keys to *his" apartment but will ask for the security deposit. You pay it and you never hear from him again.

Do you have a picture of the apartment? You could use it to do an image search on google to get an idea of who really owns it and where it actually is. Let me guess, pics show a lovely apartment finished to a very very high standard?

tinkerbell

Looks like a scam to me - I think I read about this scam before on here ("owner" living in London, cheapish rent etc). The person you've been contacting prob doesn't even own the place!

Rew

I would say definitely a scam, grammar, spelling saying things like "wire" for the bank transfer, there are alarm bells everywhere.

Chemical Byrne

Anything that talks of wiring the moneys in broken English is obviously a scam. Tbh, you'd have to be a bit slow not to cop it.

KillerShamrock

I'm sorry but that screams con!

The English is terrible almost as bad as mine :P

Why would ups handle the keys not a letting agent? have you pics or a link to the apartment?

I would avoid like the plague! it sounds to similar to the car buying scam where they work on an oil rig and want to pay you more than your price yada yada yada......

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Chemical Byrne

^ Yeah I remember a guy trying to buy a car off someone on Boards.ie and was offering too much and seemed too keen. Boardsie copped it and said he'd have a bit of fun. Told him the car had a few crashes, didn't matter, guy still wanted to buy for big moneys. Then told him that a cow had calved in the back seat, guy didn't mind, still wanted to wire the big moneys. Laughable farce.

MiddleOne

KillerShamrock is right. Anyone living abroad with a half decent property would use a letting agent or at least have a friend/family member to take the money and hand over the keys...not forgetting actually showing the apartment!

Grumpypants

It's a scam you will either:

Pay the money and never hear back.
End up sub letting from someone who doesn't know you are there.
Will find the owner returns from holiday a week after you move in.
8 other people fall for the same thing.

K.Flyer

Screams a scam to me, I would love to see what decent apartment is being let for 500 euro a month.

dan1895

There was a scam like this a couple of years ago. Big fancy Ballsbridge appartment for about €500pm. When you looked at the pics you could see European sockets on the wall.

Paulw

Clearly a scam. I don't think there's any further need for discussion.

In summary (from gaius c) -

1. Reverse search the pictures for the ad on google images to find out where the apartment really is.
2. Look for non-Irish power sockets.
3. Broken English
4. "Wire" or send money electronically to get the keys.
5. "Too good to be true"? It's probably is.

Mod Note: Thread locked.