I've been on the hunt for a new apartment in Amsterdam for a while now and browsed multiple (mostly expat) sites. I came across this advertisement where a very nice apartment was offered.

Long story short; sent a reply and this Czech lady replies stating she's currently living in the UK to improve her English (and for god sake she needs to) She said she inherited the apartment from her Dutch father

She also says she works as a nanny and could of course not make it over to Amsterdam right now to show me the place but ensured it was a fantastic place;
65 square meters for 1000 euro's per month. She was, however, advised by her attorney that I would need to wire a down payment first and after that all should be peachy

She included several pictures where I could see at least two completely different master bedrooms, two very large bathrooms (Jacuzzi's included) and a couple of huge plasma tv sets. This of course did not match her description.

I sent the lovely Czech nanny the following reply per mail:

Wow Barbora,

That is quite an apartment you offer for so little money. It sounds like a fantastic deal. I love all those various pictures. You must have had a very skilled interior designer if he managed to fit two bathrooms and two bedrooms in a 65m2 apartment, and let's not even mention the living area..again, wow. Can you give me his name please? Maybe he can redo my closet.

If I ever decide to move to London as well can you let me know what family you work for? I mean, if you can afford an attorney they must really pay you well.

I had, however some difficulties reading your mail, I guess improving your English is hard if you have to run after those bloody kids all the time. But with time and patience you'll learn. In the meantime; let me give you some advise. Next time you try to scam someone put a bit more effort in matching the pics with the description in your mail.

Hope to hear from you soon!


This was just one of many scammers I came across in my search and I'm sure I'll come across a lot more. G'night all
[Edited 10/6/09 10:08am]

dude, you're hot.

Imago said:

Thanks sweetie, now if only some landlords would think the same....

Yeah, people who would attempt such things aren't the smartest in the first place. The first step would be to make the ads at least believable.

Unfortunately there have been more and more scammers appearing on the sites where vintage music equipment is being sold - this would be one of my own interests - and there's this Italian guy who litters each site with multiple ads for really rare items for about the price of 30% of what they usually go for (EMS Synthi for 1500? When can I come over and pick it up?). They change their names on a weekly basis, but ads are just consistently ridiculous.

novabrkr said:

Hehe yeah, I especially like the ones where some forgotten Prince of a non disclosed African country tries to sell you gold dust or just needs your bank-account to transfer millions of dollars, where you get to keep at least 10%.

Thank god I've got a functioning brain

You just made me jizz.

The sexiest thing on a guy is his brain.

That's horrible!!!! I'm sure some people fall for it too.

I wish you luck in finding something in that beautiful city.

>I wish you good luck

I believe, without could evaluate, in your capacity; and for that, as regards to competence not always it's luck, but work and head; and hands... maybe it's for that I believe in your capacity

>I congratulate for your patience in answer, and to question the brute announce, obviously fallacious ...and you affirm the abuse of the lie: most of the people already nothing does, they accept without saying anything

> 65m2 with whole that program is possible but only in Japan for the hand of Tadao Ando or for the super specialists type Bauart Architekten, Hermann Kaufmann,Desai/Chia Studio and the largest in this matter of small but beautiful Satoshi Okada...

> I can help you and draw a cottage; I don't promise in 65m2 to put the whole program of the I announce, but.... if doesn't have plasmas, maybe

>for inspiration

http://www.greatbuildings..._Ando.html
http://andotadao.org/default.aspx
http://www.nhit-shis.org/

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[Edited 10/7/09 17:38pm]