I recently got an email from a reader that I think I should share with you. It involves a new kind of scam and you need to be aware of it.

Hi: I have a question regarding real estate fraud. I have an ad on a website selling my property (for OVER $550K) online. The web co. forwards me an email from someone named Dr. Earl Spencer inquiring if the property is still available. It is.

He then wants maps and info about the area. I send them to dr_earl_spencer1995@yahoo.com . Then he says I should consider the property sold and he wants my HELOC account number to send a wire transfer for the funds to purchase.

My next email was to inform him that all transactions were to take place thru my attorney; but his email address was closed. Next morning he CALLS me to say that he’s emailed me with another address to send him the account information. I told him that I reported him as a spammer to the listing website, and they were banning his email address from their site.

His next email address comes to me RIGHT THRU their website again: dr_earl_spencer@uk2.net . (He claims that the first web closed down and this was his work email. He still wants my HELOC account number or I should run to the bank quickly and open one. He obviously didn’t get my last email about working through my lawyer.

Then he says that his client is very happy with the property and is willing to pay $600,000 us dollars for it ($25,000 more than I was asking), and he wanted to wire $1 million into my account and use the $400,000 that was left to pay for renovations on the property and to pay the man I talked to and was emailing me, because he was the real estate agent. I then sent him my lawyer’s name, address, and phone number, thinking that would get rid of him; but he emailed me this morning saying his client was delighted and needed the email address of my lawyer so he could start the contract proceedure and then move to the wire transfer. My lawyer thought he was scammer the first time I talked to her; she was not available today. My bank has assured me that you cannot wire money “into” a heloc account that was opened for only 1/10th of what he wants to put in there.

What do I do with this guy now? i’m kind of thinking my lawyer doesn’t want to deal with this, period.

I need your opinion on this. I feel he is a scammer, but I have no experience with this kind of thing. Do you think there is any chance of him being legit.? His wording and mis-spellings were very un- professional. What do I do now. And who do I report him to? I gave him no information, and no wire tranfers have taken place, SO TECHNICALLY THERE WAS NO FAUD COMMITTED…YET.. Thank you for your time.

This is a scam. There is absolutely no chance in hell of him being legit.

Legitimate buyers want to see a property, want to check title, want title insurance and they want to go through a legitimate escrow company or attorney. Never give out details of you bank account or lines of credit (secured or unsecured) to anyone via email EVER. And never to anyone you don’t know.

This is similar to a scam on ebay. The winner of an auction will send you a cashiers check for twice the item (usually an expensive item) and the suspecting honest buyer will send the item and the extra money back. A month later the bank notifies that the check was fraudulent and takes the full amount out of your account. So now you’ve lost the item and the extra money!

I recently got an email that appeared to be from Monster.com, but it wasn’t. Apparently they found my email from Monster.com and had a ‘transfer manager’ position
for me. They have clients in the US (they’re based out of the UK) and since they can’t wire money to them, they’d wire it to me and I’d re-wire it out to the company. I basically should email my bank account information to them along with a copy of my drivers license and I’d get to keep 10% of the money their clients sent through me. Yeah right!

Today, the only people who can’t do international wires are people who sell illegal narcotics. Even illegal aliens can send money back to their countries through Western Union.

I contacted Monster.com and they confirmed it was a fraudulent email. They also sent me a link to the FBI’s website for reporting such cases of fraud. Unfortunately I deleted it, but this is a serious matter and you should always report it. Remember
there are gullible people who unfortunately fall victim to these sort of crimes every day.

You can get a list of common frauds on the FBI site.

Don’t let the bad guys get away. You can and should report all internet-related crimes here
http://www.ic3.gov/.