BigDaddyCool

Once again I have to apologize for not writing more in the past couple of weeks. Even though there has been a lot on my mind I have not had much time to sit down at the computer and express my thoughts as I would like. This is the first opportunity I have had in the past couple of weeks to sit down at the computer and really ler ‘er rip. Wifey and I conducted yet another Garage Sale last weekend in the hopes that we could make some money to keep the lights on and feed ourselves – and we were pretty successful.

Since we are moving to Northern California to be with her Dad we’ve needed to downsize our stuff considerably. There were some furniture items that we would not be able to take with us so we put them out for sale to see if we could get some money off of them. They included: a desk and hutch that Wifey was using as a computer desk, A six-piece wall unit that housed our TV and Stereo Receiver in our Family Room, a couch and love seat in same Family Room, three bookcases, the coffee table in the family room, a file cabinet that Wifey was no longer using, and a 27-jet spa that we can’t take with us since there is no place to put it over at dad-in-law’s place.

What really hurts is the fact that we can’t take our bed with us – it’s too big for the room we’re going into. The bed is a Tempur-pedic (you know those ‘memory foam’ beds) and it is a Cal King, where the room we are going into has a Double. We’re hoping that the room might support a Queen, but we would have to lose the bed we have that has been so kind to our backs since we were both involved in car accidents some years back. I had visions of having to wake up doubled over and having to ice my back for a half-hour every morning before getting started with my day in NoCal. But we did some checking and since we are still under Warranty we may be able to trade our bed in for a smaller size – if we’re lucky.

But – I digress…

Anyway the sale went all right, but during the sale something strange happened when a couple of people approached Wifey and asked her if she was “Susan Clark” and if ours was the house for rent in the Craigslist ad?

What?!?

Excuse me, the what ad?!?

Apparently someone is trying to pull a scam using the Internet listing of our house to solicit money from people. So I went onto Craigslist and did a search where I found the ad in question. Someone had gone to the Internet listing of our house and copied and pasted the text into their own Craigslist ad word for word. There is then a picture of our house taken from the same listing and the heading says that the house is for rent for $700.00 a month for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home. One of the people told us that when they responded to the ad they were sent an e-mail saying that the utilities were included in the $700.00, and that the keys would be sent to them via UPS once their check had cleared.

Wifey and I looked at each other and said “does anybody still fall for this crap anymore?”

So I decided to pose as a potential tenant and contact this fraud to see what the response was. I used a dummy e-mail address so that it wouldn’t be traced back to me, and here was the response I received in it’s entirety save for our address:

Dear,

Thanks for your email and interest in my house. I am Mrs.Susan Clark the owner of the House you are interested in. My House is located at Boise ID. Presently am in Texaswith my family, we came to stay with my mother-inlaw who is suffering from breast cancerOn getting here we discovered that we will be staying here for at least 5 years. so we decided to look for a responsible and caring person to maintain and take proper care of my House. We are honest and sincere family and have spent alot on our properties so I will want you to treat it as your own. you will pay $700/month, The money involved does not matters to me but I want you to keep it tidy all the time so that I will be glad to see it neat when I come for a check up. The house is located at ##)^ N xxxxxxxx Ave, Boise ID *#&!#

Initialy I and my Husband wanted to sell the house on getting to Texas on a second thought we decided to rent it out since we will be returning back to the house in the next 5 years I will like you to go take a look at the exterior part of the house because you will not be able to go inside to see the interior hence I have all the keys here with me. You can get back to me if you are truly interested.

My house is a 4bed rooms, 2bath. Very well furnished, the living room also has a fire place, and a mounted plasma screen television. The bedrooms are well
furnished with a cheery wood night stand and a chest with a dressing table, a foot board and a head board. the mattress on it is a serta pillow top mattress, this is the same in all rooms except the master bedroom which had a walking closet and mini Jacuzzi tub,2 vanity double sink, and a sleep number bed. This room also has a 37 inch plasma television. The kitchen has a stainless steel electric cooker and a self cleaning oven, a built in microwave and a double door whirlpool refrigerator. The house also has a central cooling and heating systems, with ceiling fans in all rooms. Plates, cutlery, and sheets are all provided. Extra blanket and sheets are in the extra closet located by the bathroom. The cable, light and internet  bills are all included in the rent. Do get back to me if you are truly interested and sure of taking proper care of my house there is a rent application form which I will like you to fill and Send back to me. If you can do all  this for me, then I will be willing to rent my house to you.

Looking forward to hear from you. Your full information will be used to process all documents that will be coming together with the keys leading to the house and this will come to you through UPS courier service. Thank you and remain Blessed.

Mrs.Susan Clark

After reading this response Wifey was kind of freaked because of some of the details and she was afraid that whomever this is might have been here looking around, saw our spa and put that in the ad along with all of the other guesses that were included. So if I may have your indulgence for a few moments I would like to point out the inaccuracies of this tome…

My house is a 4bed rooms, 2bath.

Yeah you took that from the Internet listing, next…

Very well furnished, the living room also has a fire place, and a mounted plasma screen television.

EEEEEEEEEE – wrong!!! The house is not as well furnished as it once was since we sold the bookcases, couch and love seat at the garage sale, it has never had a fireplace, and the closest we get to a wall-mounted plasma is when we go down to Best Buy.

The bedrooms are well furnished with a cheery wood night stand and a chest with a dressing table, a foot board and a head board. the mattress on it is a serta pillow top mattress, this is the same in all rooms except the master bedroom which had a walking closet and mini Jacuzzi tub,2 vanity double sink, and a sleep number bed. This room also has a 37 inch plasma television.

Wrong and wrong on the wood and the night stand, so far you’re 0 for 3. The mattress is a Tempur-pedic, not a Serta, and we only have the one bed in the master, the other rooms do not have beds. The closet is not “walking”, it rarely goes out for walks since it doesn’t like encountering strangers on the street because they always want to try on our clothes for some reason and our closet doesn’t like that. There is no Jacuzzi in the bathroom and only one sink instead of a double vanity in both bathrooms. 37″ Plasma in the bedroom? Yeah right, try again…

The kitchen has a stainless steel electric cooker and a self cleaning oven, a built in microwave and a double door whirlpool refrigerator.

Our STOVE is gas, not electric – and that right there is the giveaway that whoever this is, is not in the country. We here in America call them Stoves, it’s only in England or a country that used to be a British Colony where they are called “Cookers” and I know that from watching hour upon hour of “How Clean is your House?” on BBC America a lot. Yeah the oven has a “self-cleaning” feature but we have never used it, the microwave sits on a counter-top, and our Refrigerator is a Kenmore, not a Whirlpool.

The house also has a central cooling and heating systems, with ceiling fans in all rooms.

Lucky guess.

Plates, cutlery, and sheets are all provided. Extra blanket and sheets are in the extra closet located by the bathroom. The cable, light and internet  bills are all included in the rent.

Damn, if our place was really like this I would be fighting harder to stay!!! But seriously, $700.00 a month?!? Utilities included?!? With all of the plates and sheets thrown in?!?!?!?

Where can I sign up for this place?!?!?!?

Do get back to me if you are truly interested and sure of taking proper care of my house there is a rent application form which I will like you to fill and Send back to me.

For those of you who don’t know it already that right there is a red flag. That information that you send this con artist will more than likely be used to steal your identity. So in that case you would not only be out your $700.00, you would have your entire life trashed before you even knew what was happening.

Your full information will be used to process all documents that will be coming together with the keys leading to the house and this will come to you through UPS courier service.

And if you believe that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you – cheap!

Now I don’t mean to be a wise-ass, but you would have to be an idiot to fall for something like this, wouldn’t you?!? Well apparently some people either are that gullible, or they’ve just never hear the words “Nigerian” and “scam” put together, because we had six people come to the house asking about the ad in 48 hours. We got to the point where we had to put a note on the door saying that the ad on Craigslist was a scam, and that the house was for sale – not for rent!!!

We talked to our real estate agent and he told us that scams like this are actually not uncommon, it apparently happens a lot more than people think. This almost sounds like a similar situation that we have had in the North end of Boise for the past few years now where someone was renting out a house that wasn’t theirs because the owners were not living there anymore. The details can be found at this link and an update on the situation can be found by clicking here. Now we are not facing the same situation as Marcella Boylan and Caroline Werner, but Wifey still feels violated – so much so that she had me go to Lowe’s and buy locks for the side gates in case someone wanted to “go take a look at the exterior part of the house because you will not be able to go inside to see the interior hence I have all the keys here with me.”

So that’s what we’ve been having to deal with other than ducking collections calls, cleaning up the place, packing up some of our stuff, selling stuff we can’t take, trying to recover from the flu (I’m still feeling congestion in my right ear that makes it feel like I have water in my ear) and trying to keep our heads while all about us are losing theirs.

So like I have said in previous post Ladies and Gentlemen: if it sounds to good to be true – google it!!!!!!!