Please Read This, Scam! Options

[Nothing]

Hey Guys and Gals,

Just wanted to share this occurance with all of you. Im sure it doesnt happen allot, but keep your eyes opened for this.

I have a townhouse that I am renting out. I placed an ad for the unit online. I had this guy "Mike" send me several e-mails for the last 2 months where he was showing interest in renting it out. I told him I would have to have him fill out a credit application and criminal background check first. He said that he was moving from the UK to Chicago and would fill out all necessary documents apon his arrival to Chicago.

2 weeks went by and I heard nothing from him. I had another person interested and filled everything out and I rented the unit to him. Then like 2 days later I received another e-mail from "Mike" saying that he still was interested in the unit. I told him that I already rented it out and he told me that he had already sent me the deposit and extra funds to help pay the shipping of his furniture to Chicago. I checked the mail at the townhouse and there was a UPS there with 4 casiers checks for usd950.00 each. (total of usd3800.00)

I told him that I would send them back to him. He told me that he had his boss send me the payment and that his boss was out of the country now and I couldnt send them back and he was now stranded and needed me to send the payment to his shipping company to send his furniture so he could come to Chicago also. I felt a little bad about this all and thought maybe I would look deeper and help him if I could. I know a couple of the guys well at my local bank because of my business and personal accounts are there. I asked them to do me a favor and check these money orders to see if they had the correct funds in the account.

My bank needed copies of these checks because of some type of fraud that has been happening with Money orders. They got back to me a couple hours later and told me these were fake! They said that they would normally run them like normal money orders and verify funds from the origin account, which there is funds there. Then when my bank does this clearing process (about 3 days) it would show the checks as cashed and OK. But 5-7 days later, when the checks arrive to the Canada Bank that issued them, they would see these are fradulant checks and refuse the funds to my bank and therefore the funds will be withdrawn from my account.

They tell me there are many people out there doing this type of scam. Also, there were many using some story of Lottery winnings and they do the same thing with the money orders.

I would really like to send this guy some kind of nasty virus. If any of you have one to send him, his e-mail is m_mike1960@myway.com. I have a telephone number that is supposed to be his, not really sure. Its 234-181-66643. Thats what came up on my phone here anyways when his supposed boss called me to tell me he was out of the country.

[Radiation]

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This post has been edited by Radiation: 04/27/07 4:59pm