Just reporting that I received the same email...
Hi
Thanks for emailing me regarding the house is still available, but presently I 'm on business trip to kuala lumpur,malaysia. I bid for a portion of petroleum land sometimes ago in kuala lumpur,malaysia and fortunately I won, so I have to move quickly down to kuala lumpur,malaysia to have my company set up. I came down here with my wife and children, we both bought the house when we got married. As soon as we settle down here I had a thought of selling the house, so I look for an agent and getting one we strike a deal but later my wife advised me on selling the house. I did reasoned with her and accepted her advice. So I contacted the agent back and requested for my keys and documents. Later we decided to have the house rent out, we would have given the same agent this job also but the truth of the matter is that the agent would want to handle it professionally and the occupant may not be able to reason along with him later and more some I do not have anyone in the area I can leave the keys behind with so that is why I posted the craigslist ad myself. If you notice, you will discover that the price we are offering is far below standard price and I this is enough for you to know that we are not after the rental fee but the absolute care for the property. I know there is no way I can be sure that you are the right person to live in the house because we won't be able to see physical before sending you the keys and the documents to occupy the space but I believe and trust in god. The house is available for as long as you want and if you drive by the house you may see a sign there, you have nothing to worry about it belongs to my previous agent so you have absolutely nothing to worry about and you don't have to call them because they do not have access to the house anymore. Please if you are ready now to occupy the house kindly provide the information below for record purpose :
Please tell us about yourself
Full name__________________________
Home phone ( ) ________________
Date of birth__________________
Other phone ( ) ___________________
Current address_______________________________
Apt#________
City__________________
State______
Zip________
Reasons for leaving____________________________
Rent $__________
Phone ( ) ____________________________
Are you married____________________________
How many people will be living in the house____________________________
Do you have a pet____________________________
Do you have a car____________________________
Occupation____________________________
Move in date____________________________
P.S: you will not be able to view the interior part of the house because I have the keys here with me but I can send you pictures.
You can contact me on my u number..
Hao Chen
408-471-9908
925 Barstow Ct, Sunnyvale, CA 94085
Best regards
Phone ( ) ____________________________
Are you married____________________________
How many people will be living in the house____________________________
Do you have a pet____________________________
Do you have a car____________________________
Occupation____________________________
Move in date____________________________
P.S: you will not be able to view the interior part of the house because I have the keys here with me but I can send you pictures.
You can contact me on my u number..
Hao Chen
408-471-9908
925 Barstow Ct, Sunnyvale, CA 94085
Best regards
The person at the other end of this number is a rental property scammer. He finds rental ads on the internet and then he posts his own craigslist ad using the same info but posts the price super cheap and pretends to be the owner who is in a foreign country. He tries to extract your personal information and tells you he will mail the house keys to you. He's a disgusting excuse for a human being. He even tells you that if you go to the house to look at it, you'll see a for rent sign but to ignore it because he fired that person. BEWARE of any craigslist ads with this person's telephone number. It's not real!
I responded to a Craigslist ad and got a reply email that basically states what RentalRipoffArtist outlined above. I searched google for the lady's name and apparently she did live at the address but based on the above I won't follow up. Thanks people!
I didn't contact him. I don't want to communicate directly with him. Instead I reported him to Craigslist abuse for two different properties; he had downloaded MY pictures of the properties and copied my ad and reposted it with a significantly lower rent amount. I've been contacted about 15 times in the past two months from people who suspected he was phishing for money. Hopefully people are well informed and don't fall for the garbage he's peddling.
The properties were valid rental properties. The phisher actually used the names of the owners as a way of tricking people. The good news is that by publishing his number here in 800notes.com, more people will know about him and he will have to get a new phone number! When there is a real estate sign in the yard, you can be 99.9% sure that the property is listed by that realtor. The Dublin houses in question were rented for $3,300, not 1200 or 1300 as the phisher is telling people. Buyer beware!