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.
10 comments
Comment by Anonymous on 7 July 2009 at 14:51
this is really a rather funny story but also alerts the people who don't aware about these kinds of frauds. And this guy is very lucky of not loosing any money yet. We should be very carefull when disclosing our personal information to websites. this is the reason why i am posting my comments as anonymous --:)).And the real funny part in the whole story is calling to emergency center. imagine "what could have happend if the call had gone to fire office", he would have got 3 or 4 fire engines along infront of his room :). Anyway this is a worth readable story , isn't it -:).
Comment by Anonymous on 7 July 2009 at 15:37
This blog is helpful for people who are all new to the city. Scammers are always clever. But this guy is cleverer than scammers. Ha ha ha..
JAK
Comment by லிண்டா ஜான்சன் on 10 July 2009 at 01:30
தலைவா!!! என்கிட்ட கூட ஒரு ரூம் இருக்கு
Comment by Anonymous on 10 July 2009 at 02:11
'Scammer' padathukku neethaan hero!!!!
unnoda call attend panna 112 attendy thaan unnoda heroine!!!!!
Ram
Comment by The Majuscule Tornado on 15 July 2009 at 03:19
Thanks balu, arun, 'vinaiooki' selva and ram..
Thanks..
Comment by அன்புடன் அருணா on 15 July 2009 at 15:41
Must have learnt a good lesson!!!!
Comment by Anonymous on 17 July 2009 at 15:00
This scammer is still active and trying to get money from us too July16, 2009. Someone somewhere should stop him/her. I think he is also trying to get someone to marry him online too. I heard CIA check on this type of criminals. Anyone knows how to stop them? BE careful of this person from minemine4youall@hotmail.com
Comment by RAMAKRISHNAN on 17 July 2009 at 19:43
bit funny.. but certainly a alert posting for the new people coming there.. thanks for sharing :)
Comment by Unknown on 18 July 2009 at 15:08
a good piece of information
Comment by gnero on 24 July 2009 at 01:31
I actually got a mail from this same "person" today - offering me an appartment in Stockholm.
I am currently looking for an appartment. However, I got suspicious by the weird address (mineminemine...) and the english language - why would someone with an appartment in Sweden and who has placed an in swedish answer me in english - i thought.
And mostly thanks to your blog I could tell for certain that it was a fraud! Thank you!