Letter To The Editor: Room For Rent Ad Draws Scam

By PAUL MARTINEZ
Los Alamos

Just thought you and your readers might want to know about an incident (scam) I recently dealt with. I had advertised a room for rent on Craigslist thinking that I could rent an extra bedroom out to a LANL summer intern. 

I immediately got a response from a young woman wanting to lease the room. Her name was Margaret and informed me that she would send a deposit and extra money that was to be paid to someone for delivering a car to Los Alamos for her. She was currently in Alaska and would be arriving in Los Alamos in June to attend graduate school.

On Friday, May 22, 2015, I received a check for $3500.00 and the attached e-mail with specific instructions on what to do with the check (monies). The check was issued by Independence Bank, 2425 Frederick Str, Owensboro, KY 42301 drawn on the account of Owensboro Riverport Authority, 1771 River Rd., Owensboro, KY 42301.

I called the bank at 1-270-228-4212 (found number on Internet) and they informed me that the check was fraudulent, worthless. That this has happened to others. So readers, please beware.

Email From Scammer:

From: Margaret Holsinger <abackgsjgig@gmail.com>

Date: May 22, 2015 at 12:17:54 PM MDT
To: Martpablo <martpablo@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Room for rent

Hi,

Goodday to you over there?, hope you are doing great? Payment in the amount of $3,500.00 has been delivered to you today and here is the UPS tracking number (1ZX1A5090154029710) for the payment…you can simply have the number provided to you tracked at www.iship.com/trackit to know the estimated delivery time. 

Once you receive the check, please have the check deposited into your account through your ATM or go to your bank. After getting that done calculate your one month rent fee and partial withdraw $1700 cash for my car….Take the cash to any nearest Walmart store use money gram to wire the fund to the car dealer information given below.. Meanwhile the car is coming with all the necessary paper and it’s a Red Toyota Camry 2013 model.

HERE IS THE CAR DEALER AGENT INFORMATION YOU ARE TO WIRE THE FUND TO VIA MONEY GRAM TODAY 

Receiver’s Name:…  Smith Rene Shelley
Address:… 828 8th street west
City:…. Philipsburg
State: MT
Zip Code:…. 59858.

Note you are to deduct the money gram transfer charges from the money you are transferring to the car dealer agent and choose Money Gram Service MONEY IN MINUTE to send the money transfer….and once you have the fund wire to the car dealer agent you are to kindly get back to me with the money gram money transfer details…

*Senders Name:
*Address you used in sending the funds:
*Total Amount sent:
*Money Gram 8 digit reference number:

Please i’ll appreciate it if you can tell me when you will be getting this done?, waiting to hear from you as soon as you receive my e-mail.

Thanks and many regards

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