I rent out my spare room, and I receive far more phishing attempts than legitimate inquiries from real renters. This one is the most common:
Hi,
Hello to You overthere and how is your day? I saw your advert that You have a room available for rent and i am interested in knowing the availability of the place and i will also want to know more about the place, neighboourhood ,and the utilities included…?
I am Kristen Hall,a Medical Humanitarian Nurse ,and ve been involve since the past 8 years,taking care of the motherless babies,Homeless one and all of that,I am still kind of young because i just turned 27yrs old…I Can speak both English and German,i love to live with clean people,caring,responsible,neat type. I’m 5″7′ straight,and i am in south Dokota now ,I will want to move by the ending of January depending on the availability of the room ,I speaks English fluently ,so we have no barriers.
I’ll let You know more about me if i am to rent this particular room that you have to offer
I will be anxiously waiting for your next email
Kind Regards
A Medical Humanitarian Nurse? Are there non-medical nurses? Mechanical nurses? Electronic nurses?
The same rules apply to screening these kinds of communications that apply to just about any other electronic communication from someone you don’t know.
- Is the person who they say they are? Can they prove it?
- Do they they have references?
- Are they asking for something unreasonable and very odd? For example, are they asking to rent a room, sight unseen, from a total stranger? Are they asking to accept money for some purpose without receipts or contracts?
- Is the person a foreigner or living overseas?
One time I had an email from someone who claimed to be coming to town for a business-related convention. He said he worked in Nigeria (or some other West African country) for British-American Tobacco. The phisher wanted to stay for one month, but pay for two. He wanted to ship a clothes washer, a wide-screen tv, and a full bedroom suite from Europe, because he just couldn’t bare to be without them. Does anyone ever actually fall for that? A clothes washer!? Is it even possible to be that stupid and still know how to use email?
Update: Also watch out for anyone who asks you to cash a check and then reimburse them a portion of the face value. It’s the Nigerian 419 Scam that has been floating around for years.
Update: BTW, Summer, if you ever get tired of Hollywood, I have an empty room at my place, just for you.
I speaks English fluently
Funny stuff, there. I speaks it fluently, too.
BTW, Summer, if you ever get tired of Hollywood, I have an empty room at my place, just for you.
Looks like someone’s been watching the Terminator tv show.
I have, too. Here’s my beef with it so far, though: when Summer’s character was first introduced, she was pretending to be a normal girl, and in fact seemed typically human. Once we found out she’s a machine, suddenly she can’t remember how to act normally anymore. What the heck?
Any bets on how long it will be before John gets himself some robot lovin’? Assuming she’s (ahem) fully functional and all.
I recorded tonight’s episode, and I’m watching it right now. That same thought about her behavior has been in my head since it started. The other thought–about her potential behavior with John–has crossed my mind also. The writers obviously intended it to.
Serenity, one of my all-time favorite movies, was the first time I remember seeing Summer in anything. I seem to have developed a penchant for dancers lately.