My wife and I own an apartment building, and we're having a unit come up empty. I posted an ad on craigslist last night, and predictable as clockwork, I received the usual Africa email:
On 11/28/05, susan martyns wrote:
>
>
> Hello there,
>
> I m a humble,peaceable,amiable,responsible and
> God-fearing lady with a rising profile in the banking
> industry in africa,i don't drink nor smoke.I love
> learning about new cultures and customs in
> particularly, i love making friends around the
> world.I'm about being sent on an official purpose to
> the US, the for three months or thereabout.
> I like to inform you that this trip is being
> financed
> by my bank every expenses would be paid to
> the last cent.In this regards,i will be glad if you
> can kindly find me worthy for this apt room for the
> period.Please send me details of this accomodation, itutilities,amount and
> it condition
> i will be looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> humbly yours,
> Susan
> p.s i will like to tell you that i have not been to
> the US before,so this will be my first visit
>
> _____________________________
___
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>
Every time we post an ad, we get extremely suspicious mails from Africa that offer to rent the apartment, with the assurance that the person renting will be paying for their rent in advance with money orders, or that their corporation will be paying ALL EXPENSES (it's often all caps like that). This particular one (and maybe two of the others) have included attached headshots of models, probably from some photo collection.
I've stopped being polite, and thought you might find the brief thread interesting.
My response:
>Ben Hallert
wrote:
>Hi there!
>Sorry, we have a "no international scams" policy that prevents us from
>being able to rent to you. The pictures of some generic model you
>have included are pretty, but irrelevant to housing decision of
>course. Not that this matters, as you are a 20-25 year old man who
>feels comfortable with trying to steal money from hard working
>families for some reason. I wonder where your parents went wrong to
>raise someone to think that hurting others was ok? If I were them, I
>would be ashamed at the thought of what my son had become.
>I hope you have a chance to evaluate exactly how you turned out the
>way you did, and in the meantime, I will offer my best wishes to the
>memory of your poor parents and their shame.
>Regards,
>Ben
After I sent it, I spent a few minutes wondering about the legions of scammers at their keyboards and what leads them to this. I then received this terse:
>From: susan martyns
>Date: Nov 28, 2005 10:37 AM
>Subject: Re: Apt Needed!!!
>To: ben@vipmail.com
>thanks anyway for your concern.take care
Usually, they don't bother replying. In the 4-5 of these I've corresponded with, I've never received an outraged "How dare you suggest I am a scammer!" response, which I find fascinating.
I haven't read about this anywhere else, but I know I can't be the only one encountering this. Thought I'd mention it here for y'alls amusement/info.
