ScamVictimsUnited.com

here is the original email that I received from a reply that I made for a craigslist ad titled "$800 / 3br - Immaculate, New 3 BR"

Thanks for the interest in my house. I Mr Olga Pashkevich own the 3 bedroom Home and i also want you to know that it was due to my transfer that makes me and my wife leave the house so i want to give it out for rent thats why am looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it like his or her own.as we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at all time and be taking good care of.

I pray that the person that will rent my house takes it as if it were his or her own. So for now, We are here in west Africa,Nigeria our new house.we are having all the keys and all vital documents right here with us,we try to look for an agent that we can give this documents to before weleft but could not see and also we are as well cautious about not wanting our house be used any how out of our present that is why we took the keys and all documents along with us.

Me and my wife and our 15 years son are presently in West Africa working in an AIDS orphange with missionaries from our church.so i hope you will solicit us to take very good care of the house and maintain it.So i can be rest assured i finally found a caring one to take good care of our house.so get back to me on how you could take care of our house or perhaps experience you have in renting home. Hope you are okay with the price of $800(per month) with hydro,heat laundry facilities,wacher,heat air condition and so on. I am looking forward to hear from you ASAP, below is the application form for you to fill and discuss on how to get the house for rent.

This is the address of the home below.

1620 Indaba Way Charleston, SC 29414

RENT APPLICATION FORM
Also,Pls let me get this answer.
1)Your Full Name

2)Your Full Address & Phone Number

3)How old are you?

4)Are you married?

5)How many people will be living in the house?

6)Do you have a pet?

7)Do you have a car?

Occupation?

9)What is your religion?

10)Are you born again?


Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can have it in my file incase of issuing the receipt for you and contacting you.Await your soonest response so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the keys to you,please we are giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words,you know that,we have not seen yet.am only putting everything into Gods hand,so please do not let us down with this our property and God bless you more as you do all this.you can call me on my private phone.+2348033340806 so we can talk on phone.
Regards.
Await your reply.



I never called the number but did reply in email. I gave him my name, address, and phone number. He replied back with this:



Hello Halley.

Thanks so much for the email.infact after the reading of your email.i was touched in the spirit that i have the right family for my house.we will be very happy to have you as our tenant.we will be staying here for good 2 years.

So you are free to stay as long as you can.and even when we get back to the state.we will be relocating else where.i also have my furnitures in there.but if you have yours.you are free to furnish it to your taste and pack my things at the store house i have at the backyard.we would like to send the following document to you via DHL to the
address you will be providing to us and the tracking number will be sent to you so that you can possibly occupy our house,

Please once again, we are giving you this on trust and do solicit not to dissapoint us.i promise you that you
will love the house. So we are with the below document here with us.you will only need to make the Payment of a security Rent deposit for the shipment of the Keys and all the vital documents to the address you have provided to us.your monthly fee includes all the utilities.i am missionary and we really need to reach out good things to the world because the source of leaving is quite outrageous.

Now that am out of town.its a blessing from the lord.not the money that matters here.i just want good care for my house.so please make sure you take very good care of the house for me.do it like just your own.


However i seem to be giving you consideration because you seem to be the most elligible of all the applicants,and am particular about a family that will take care of my home like theirs.first and Importantly you need to send me $600 for your security deposit payment which is refoundable,if you don't like my housei also want to let you know this is made with one bond of trust and under all sincerety of the heart.I want you to maintain and live in the house avoiding all forms of demage and trouble, and God will surely bless you in hundred folds and more.
The package will be posted on the same day of the rent payment transfer and delivered at your current address through DHL/UPS postal delivery service on the nextday (within 24hrs), and pick up details will be sent to you in advance via email.
You can go ahead,and hope you will keep to your promise,all i want is to confirm your seriouness.Go ahead and make out the payment.all you have to do is go to any Western Union Money Transfer near you get the Money wired to the information bellow.after getting the keys and all the vital documents you need with you for move in.i have trusted you already.i pray everything works out as i wish and as you promise.Here is how to make your security deposit payment to me so i can send the keys and all the vital documents to you asap.


THE CONTENTS OF THE PACKAGE THAT WILL BE SEND TO YOU ARE LISTED BELOW;
1) House Entrance keys and the rooms Keys
2) House Rental form(Containing your reference details)
3) The house documetary file
4) Security deposit payment Receipt
5) Full address and description of the house.
6)Agreement lease which you will sign and send it back to me


THIS ARE THE INFORMATION THAT WILL BE REQUIRED IN MAKING THE PAYMENT
Payment receiver's name:Mr Olga Pashkevich
Receiver's address: 24A St jude's cathedral way, Lagos,Nigeria, West Africa. 01234
Payment transfer Test Question: Who made you
Payment transfer Test Answer: God
Amount transfered: $ 600


1:Sender's Full Name..................
2:Sender's Address....................
3:MTCN of 10 digits number issued to you by western union
4:Amount Sent..................
5:Text Question and Answer................


Note: walk into any western union money transfer outlet, pick up a money transfer form, fill it out and make the money transfer. (fill in the money transfer sender's name,address etc)
Get back to me with the money transfer receipt details for confirmation and reference purpose.And you can move in as soon as you want to ok.may our gracious Lord contineu to enrich you and your household as whole.


The package will be posted on the same day of the confirmation of your security deposit payment transfer.and the package will be delivered at your current address through DHL postal delivery service on the nextday ok.and also pick up details will be sent to you in advance via email.



A little fishy huh?? So, I replied back to him with the following email.



Hi Mr. Pashkevich,

Could you tell me a bit more information about yourself? Other than missionary work, what else have you been involved in? Also, I would love to know what church you were involved with in Charleston. Having only been in the area for a few months, I have not found a place I feel that is home. Where is your family originally from and why did you choose Charleston, SC to come to? I look forward to seeing your place so that I can take care of it for you. The lord works in mysterious ways.

Halley


and got this back. seems as though he's a little frantic... I haven't responded after this one. Good luck to you all!!!



Subject: GET BACK TO ME ASAP!!

Hello Halley.

Thanks for your mail.missionary is work.i devote my mind to work for the lord since my child hood.Elizabeth Baptist in Charleston.i want to let you no you will love this house and you will surely love it ok.you don't have any problem in renting my house.i have the faith will call it home ok.Charleston has a nice school district and I know it has a beautiful neighborhood with several parks in it which seem nice.i have somebody else that has been mailing me about the house,like i said in my last mail you seem to be giving you consideration because you seem to be the most elligible of all the applicants,and am particular about a family that will take care of my home like theirs.first and Importantly you need to send me $600 for your security deposit payment which is refoundable.right now have preper all the keysand document and all you need for move in.kindly send the money so i can tell the DHL/UPS postal delivery service TO SEND YOU THE pakage to you,i also want to let you no that does thing will get to your corrent address with 24 hours.not that i'm much concern about your money, i only need someone responsible that can take good care of my house.get back to me ASAP.

Thanks and God bless you.

As my user name expresses, I know Olga and can assure you that she was not the sender of the emails indicated in your post. She does indeed own the property listed and the property was indeed posted on Craigslist. But it was posted at a higher price and has been rented. Among the many other falsehoods included in the posted emails are that Olga is a male (she is a female); that she is out of the country (she is not); that she would rent the property without meeting the potential tenent (she would not), and that she is a missionary with a 15 year old child (neither is true). I know this because she is my wife, I posted the Craigslist listing (only once), we never responded to any Craigslist email, and rented the property to someone else already. I am not sure how any of this came to be and we are very disturbed that someone has sought to take advantage of anyone let alone do so by using Olga's name or invoking Christianity to pull off the scam. Thankfully, some appparently caring stranger called and left a voicemail alerting us to the situation, allowing us to at least look for the scam and reply to this post. But let me affirm once again, Olga is NOT the person who communicated with this post-er. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to make that clear.

IknowOlga2,
Many times the scammers will use the name or address of a real person to try and make their scam sound more real. There may have been a time that Olga's name was posted someplace, and they just decided that it was a good name to use.

I have seen this happen many times before.

This scam is popping up with other names as well. I responded to an ad on craigslist for a house for rent for $950/month in Sammamish, WA (a great deal for this area), wondering if it was real or a typo. I did not call the person, but responded via email and received almost the exact same replies as the ones coming from "Olga" only they were from "Fernando Ma and wife":

Thanks for the email.. I Mr. Fernando Ma And Wife own the 4bedroom's /House and also want you to know that it was due to my transfer that makes me and my wife to leave the house and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it as we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at the time and the person that will rent it to take it as if it were its own. So for now, We are here in west Africa, our new house and also with the keys of the house, we try to look for an agent that we can give this documents before we left but could not see and we are as well as don't want our house to be used any how in our present that is why we took it along with us. I and my wife came over to West Africa for a missionary work, so I hope you will promise us to take very good care of the house. So get back to me on how you could take care of our house or perhaps experience you have in renting home. Hope you are okay with the price of US $950 with hydro, heat laundry facilities, air condition and so on.. The house is available now and you can move in whenever you are ready, I am looking forward to hear from you soon, please call us on how to get the house for rent, 011 then +2347026842932. I will be waiting for your call.

RENT APPLICATION FORM

1)Your Full Name?
2)Your Full Address & Phone Number?
3)Are you married?
4)How many people will be living in the house?
5)Do you have a pet?
6)Do you have a car?
7)Occupation?
how long lease are you looking for?
9)How soon do you intend moving in?


Looking forward to hearing from you with all this details so that I can have it in my file incase of issuing the receipt for you and contacting you. Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the key to you, we do not see yet and only putting everything into Gods hand, so please do not let us down in this our property and God bless you more as you do this. Thanks and you are welcome.

Mr. Fernando Ma And Wife

I replied with the information and asked for the address so that we could drive by and look at the house, thinking it was legitimate, but the next response made me start thinking it was a scam. He wanted me to send him the first month's rent and refused to give me the address of the house:

Dear Jennifer,
Thanks for your commendable email However, if you are ready to rent the house now, then that will not be a problem but I will advice you to be a responsible person like you promised to be. You will have to make one month rent payment and also I would like to send the following document to you via the DHL so give me an address to send it to and the tracking number will be sent to you so that you can possible occupy my house, Please once again, we are giving you this on trust and do not disappointing us and I promise you that, you will love the house. So I am with the below document here with me and I will like to know whether you are ready for the payment one month rent now which is $950 so that the keys and the below items can be sent to you.
Here are the contents of the document.
1) Entrance and the rooms Keys
2) Paper/Permanent house form (Containing your reference details)
3) The house documentary file.
4) Payment Receipt.
5) Full address and description of the house.

So please get back to me today so that I can give you the information to make the payments. Due to security reasons I can't disclose the address of the house, the last time I gave out the address, the person tried break into the house without waiting for the keys. I hope you understand what I mean but the keys and the house documents will be sent to you once we are through with the necessary arrangements.I am not saying you will do the contrary.

Thanks and hope to hear from you soon.

Mr. Fernando Ma And Wife

This is the email that got my scam sniffer going. I asked him if he was asking me to send money without even knowing the address and told him that I would not do so without being able to verify that he, in fact, owned the house. He replied that they did not feel comfortable giving out the address. Needless to say, I am reporting this to craigslist (the rental listing was taken down from craigslist this morning) and will not be responding again or sending any money, especially after doing a search and finding this chain with almost the exact same wording.