Scam alert #2

What is it about me which attracts scammers?

Well, I'm 97.5% sure that this guy, Sam McMahon (remember the name), is a scammer. Let me present the facts.

So you might have known by now that I've been looking for a flat in Singapore for my summer work placement. Which in the process, I've emailed a few people looking for flatmates through property websites.

When last night I received this email from a so-called Sam about 2 rooms in his apartment in Singapore, I was so happy. $450 for each room including all the utilities, and the photos were too good to be true.

first email to me.
seems like a pretty normal, decent guy, right?
even mentioned about losing his father bla bla to get my empathy.
PFFFT!

2nd email.
he must be thinking, "gotcha!!!"
still, he mentioned about signing contracts etc, sounds legit to me.
anyone could have fallen for that.

So I did a little bit of googling and came up with these results.

• Googled his phone number and came up with this. Rooms for rent in many countries? Sound dodgy to you?

the number he provided in his emails.

A testimony of how GOOGLE SAVED MY LIFE!!!
or rather, my money.

theory 1: real estate agent dude owning all these flats in different countries?
not saying that it's not possible.. but c'mon it's so obvious that theory 1 is a no-no.

theory 2: a dumb-as scammer using same phony phone number. to SAM the scammer: "there's this technology called search engines eg GOOGLE which let's people find out similar items..."

• In one of those searches, the photo of the toilet in a flat in Barcelona and the one in Spore is exactly the same. As in every pixel is the same. Too pretty to be true.

photos as attached in his email to me.

ad for flat in Singapore- the one I responded to.

Spot the similarity

• Googled "scam phone numbers" and came up with a shocking find. Apparently there has been a major scam going on, and they always provide the phone number with the suffix +44 70xxxxxxxx. It's proven that these scammers provide UK calling codes (the +44 in front), but the calls actually get redirected to somewhere in Nigeria or West Africa when called.

So I decided to confront him.
I'd also flagged his ad on the property website as inappropriate, haha!

So far, no reply yet.

Darn you scammers. Get a real job already.