Hi folks. This time I have an interesting affair which has to be shared with you. And I am sure this information would be useful for all the students/employees who have their plans of moving abroad and/or switching their residence from one place to another.

I am a Graduate student living in the southern part of Sweden who recently got an admission in one of the well-known universities of the country that is situated in the capital city. Acquiring an appropriate apartment in this kind of metropolises is really a tough task than gaining a seat in that prestigious university. I started looking for an apartment after I got my place confirmed for the course. A childhood friend of mine who had also applied for a course in the same university got his admission confirmed and was processing his visa from my home country. So, I got a partner for this hunt and was in a situation that I had to look out for a room where I could accommodate my friend too. Everything started here.

After a series of discussion with my senior students, I had registered myself in all the student housing websites and started searching for an apartment. Most of the websites require our e-mail addresses and phone numbers for various security reasons. But the fact is that, they are not providing any protection to the tenants' contact details. The information given to most of the online housing companies remains open to all. Since I was not aware of all these stuffs, I had given my e-mail, phone number along with my mailing address.

Couple of days later, I got a mail that talked about a fully furnished apartment situated at the centre of the city especially for students. The sender was Leyla Pursharifi, a 25 year old girl working as a wedding planner who flies all over the Europe quite often. She introduced herself in her very first mail like this: “I am in London now, planning a wedding ceremony. I am an easy going lady, I am 25 Years. I am Single. I like meeting people, I like traveling. My profession is Wedding Planner under Event Manager. Feel free to ask me any question if you have got any. I like to know more about you too”. She had also asked me if I was really interested in that apartment. I had replied the next day with minimal information about me and raised a bunch of queries to know more about her. I got a reply within an hour with all my queries answered elaborately. She had gone a step ahead and given me her hotmail id “minemine4youall@hotmail.com” and asked me to add her in my friends’ list so that it would be easy to discuss more about the apartment and other stuffs.

In the mean time, I had a chat with my friend who was processing his visa and he gave me a clue that another friend of him got a similar mail from a lady who gave similar details about her except the name. This time the room was in another city and the girl was Angelique Fragniere. A glint of suspicion made me decide to be very careful with that lady. I had used my Gmail address for all the registrations done on the websites and I was not sure about what she had done. Suddenly she appeared in my Google talk friends’ list without any invite. Later I came to know that there is a security setting through which the sender can add us to their friends’ list without any formal request or invite. Her Gmail address is “leylanijo@googlemail.com”. She initiated the chat and was sharing her personal information which made me even more alert. All of a sudden, she asked me to transfer one month’s rent to her account as a security deposit which would help me reserve my stand for that apartment. The moment she started emphasizing about money, my doubts were asserted and I entered her email addresses in Google Search Engine simultaneously. It came up with quite a lot of suggestions. The first one was a blog about International Scammers which had a huge list of scammers around the globe and it was obvious our beloved Leyla Pursharifi was also a part of it.

Now the real funny part…
I was then sure that it was the scammer chatting and I had no idea but calling 112 which usually connects to the nearest emergency centre. My call was connected successfully and a lady was responding at the other end. As Swedish people are not very good at English, it was a real fun talking to her. I informed her that I was caught into an internet scam and the scammer was chatting with me. Her immediate reaction was “Tell me your address. Ambulance is on your way”. I somehow managed to explain everything to her and asked her how I should be proceeding further. She listened carefully and this was her next reply, “You did not give your address yet”. Then what to do.. I had given my best buddy’s address and disconnected the call.

Later deleted all traces of Leyla from my Google and Hotmail account and ensured all the security settings are properly saved.

You can find the list of international scammers in the following blogs.

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