rental too good to be true? The Phantom Landlord Scam.

J

jillyb

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Hi guys - sorry bit long!

I found a property on myhome.ie for €600 per month for a 2 bed place in cork ( which is very good). Its gorgeous so i emailed the landlord about it and this is what he emailed back:

"Hi,
My name is Richard Thorpe and i have an apartment for rent in ***** Cork and the price is 600 EUR/month. The apartment was my mother's, but she died 2 years ago and now i thought i can rent it. I live in UK with my family. If you are interested to rent the apartment, the rent is 600 EUR and you will have to pay for 2 months in advance (for the whole apartment) including all utilities (water, electricity, Internet, cable, parking, air conditioning, dishwasher, microwave, refrigerator) and you will begin to pay the rent normal from the 3th month of your staying.
If you are interested, email me back and i will explain you how we can proceed.
Thank you."


I only thought afterwards that it may be a scam as his name is very English (no offence intended) but his english wasn't great. I was nearly scammed before, with a job/cheque scam from someone called Tom Henshaw.

any thoughts??
 
This is a well established scam. The characteristics tend to be:

- Very nice place at below the going rent for the area.
- A "LL" who happens to be resident outside the country. This of course means he can't meet you in person. How unfortunate.

The first part ensures a big response from prospective tenants, there are are probably dozens of people wondering the exact same as you are now. The second part will ultimately wind up with him asking you to wire him money and he'll send you the key. There is no key because there is no apartment.

Don't rent from someone you can't meet personally, or who doesn't have an agent for you to meet. They should be contactable by a landline phone number ideally.

If you've nearly been scammed before the tell-tale signs should set your alarm bells ringing. No real company providing loans asks you for money to "process" it, and no landlord lets his apartment out for below market rent at a distance.

I can't remember any "too good to be true?" situation where it actually turned out to be true, so when it comes to financial matters maintain a sceptical approach.
 
hey thanks everyone!! thought as much but the good price was clouding my judgement!!
 
What about his father, the Minister of Defence? To lose two parents has to be considered careless...although at least now I'll get my share of the $25 million that they had syphoned off for the purchase of arms. That is, once I've wired poor orphan Dick the €10,000 he needs to access his late father's account. Maybe he'll use that to refurbish the property in Cork so he can increase the rent?
 
you should play along with him for a while, the more time that is wasted on these people the sooner they will get sick of it.
 
OP, why not report this to myhome.ie before Dicky Thorpe catches some people for the rent in advance.
 
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