I posted an advertisement during the summer of 2009 in an attempt to find a roommate to live with me. I knew there were people who would be responding to my ad that were possibly going to try to steal from me, so I was very careful about who I met with. I used email communication as an initial screening test, if they sounded trustworthy I would agree to meet up with them for interviews.
How to you discern trustworthyness in an email though? You have to search for tone in the written words. This was no easy feat, but after enough scam emails, there were common themes.
First, all the scammers would portray themselves as normal, provide me with background information on themselves such as age, hobbies, how clean they are, and ironically none of them enjoyed having people over. By providing normal information about themselves, my attitude toward them was, "hey, this might be a potential roomie, they sound easy enough to live with." They developed trust by discussing normal, generic traits.
Second: As soon as trust was developed, they would immediately begin discussing payment details, all of them were from another state or country and needed my house address to ship their car and belongings to me. They almost all insisted on paying for multiple months rent in advance to reserve the room. They would ask for my personal information so they would know who to write the check to, and then ask me to remove my advertisement because they plan on moving in ASAP. The tone went from a positive "TRUST ME!!!!" to another positive "I'LL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING!" To a fool, this would work, but underneath what they were saying I understood the email quite differently. By analyzing the play in tone that the person used I was able to determine what the email actually meant: "LOOK, I'M JUST LIKE YOU SO LET ME MOVE IN, OH AND WE DON'T NEED TO MEET LOOK HOW COMPATIBLE OUR PERSONALITIES ARE, SO JUST SEND ME ALL YOUR INFORMATION AND LET ME STEAL EVERYTHING FROM YOU WHILE YOU'RE UNAWARES!"
Needless to say, I never met up with the person who's email I will leave at the bottom of this post for anyone who wants to read it. I listened to the tone of the email rather than the words the email said to determine this person was a scammer after my possessions. Also, the grammer in the email didn't help this person betray me.
ACTUAL EMAIL:
Hello Kat I'll be so glad if you can reserve the room for me and i really appreciate the breakdown details of the house, more about me from Huntsville, AL, USA, a quiet,clean,honest,responsible and easy going person to live with, I'm 5"7',straight, 26 years of age. I dont drink nor smoke but i'm cool living with people that do. I love to go on date but seldomly party. I swim for fun and sometimes play long tennis... i live with my Uncle here in AL,my Dad and mom's dead since i was a kid ,roommie i want you to know that i have no friends in the area except you for now lol....I am currently working on a research pertaining to my course work on culture and tourism. I hope to end my current assignment by the end of this month here in Alabama and focus on my new assingment to your States.. According to your mail, i will have to make a payment of $500 and reserve the room for me before my arrival, and then i will make subsequent payment thereafter as i plan to stay for more than 6months. So i'll client to see you'll get the payment prior to my arriving date....To be honest with you i really like the kind of person you are from your little description and if you have the picture of the bedroom available, kindly forward it to my mailbox. I am really okay with the place... I am planning to arrive on the 1st of next month so i will love to know if i can make the payment ahead of my arrival via business check,money order or personnal Cheque,Bank acctount ...so you will get the payment by next week and i can go ahead making arrangement for sending the payment to you, also i will much apprecaite if you can mail your information like,your mailing address ,your full name,your contact number as to appear on the payment. I will like to ship in my car,luggage,laptop and other materials for my research ahead of my arrival... I will also like you to remove the advert from the site b'cos i am ready to have your place rented..... Hope to read from you soon. |
5 comments:
I think using Craigslist as an example gives an excellent insight into the importance of reading critically and with comprehension. Scammers are experts at gaining trust through rhetoric. The various misspelled words and weird statements like "sometimes I play long tennis" or "personal Cheque" and "i'll client to see you'll get the payment" all lead me to believe these scammers come from a foreign country. Specifically the spelling of the word "Cheque" is only spelled that way in Europe.
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I agree with your thoughts on Craigslist. I too have had issues where you talk to people through email and over time the attitude and intentions will generally begin to change or not be consistant. Whats even more entertaining is the email this person sent to you! I laughed all the way through this thinking this individual doesnt have better than 6th grade writing skills. No one could nor should take someone like that seriously, but unfortunately as we can see it happens all the time on Craigslist.
I'm not brave enough to post anything on Craigslist because of responses like these. I'm sure these people send the same message to anyone looking for a roommate.
What amazes me is how little this kind of scammer has changed over the years. I remember reading e-mails with very similar language and tone in the early 90's, when the Net was first coming into the home.
I am glad to know that I'm not the only one who can actually hear the slime.
Scams are everyday occurrence at Craigslist, good job scoping them out. No wonder Craigslist has a red banner, dedicated to warning people to avoid scammers who like to take advantage of others.
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