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dwknight

74 posts

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#277115 26-Sep-2020 17:27
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Hi guys, I'd appreciate your feedback on the following situation.

 

Today I received a letter from a rental property manager saying I had just a few days to change the bank account that I pay my rent to. I don't currently pay rent to a property manager (direct to landlord instead).

 

In the age of scams, social engineering, malware, and all that good stuff this letter set off a lot of the warning bells for me.

 

  • The letter was hand-delivered.
  • The envelope was not addressed to me by name, but instead to "the tenants"
  • The letter itself did not mention my name or the name of my landlord.
  • The letter featured errors in the text (one of the sentences was repeated).
  • I only have a few days to make the necessary changes. No 2 weeks notice or anything like that.

In all fairness, I happen to know that my current landlord is selling the property to someone else, but I've never had any communication from either party that a property manager will be contacting us. The letter does come with a legitimate looking business card.

 

Since I could easily steal/borrow a bunch of business cards from a real property manager, what's to stop me from posting letters like this all over town with my own bank account number on it? I expect a lot of people would fall for the trick.

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

David K


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richms
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  #2574719 26-Sep-2020 17:29
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Nothing stops you, and you can be sure that the account given is some sucker who will be falling for a "work from home scheme" where they keep the profits of sales and send the rest offshore by western union.

 

You can also have cards printed for dirt cheap from vistaprint or similar and put a prepay number and some photo from google image search on it and away you go.





Richard rich.ms



dafman
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  #2574720 26-Sep-2020 17:43
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Don't do it.

 

 

You could always put the current rent payment on hold and follow up with the landlord. Paying legitimate rent late is preferable to losing the money. You have good reason to be careful, just explain it to them.

 

 


RunningMan
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  #2574721 26-Sep-2020 17:46
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Contact your landlord and ask.




Linux
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  #2574735 26-Sep-2020 18:20
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Why don't you just call the landlord directly and speak to them!

andrewNZ
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  #2574740 26-Sep-2020 19:14
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Perhaps it's worth calling the bank and/or police if the landlord says it's not legit.

The reason I suggest it is, the person who dropped the letter is likely being scammed too. When the law kicks in, they're usually the ones out of pocket.

timmmay
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  #2574752 26-Sep-2020 19:46
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This is a very common scam. Often attackers break into a business like a law firm that gets huge amounts paid around and send an email saying "bank account has changed". If you EVER get anything like this call the phone number you had for the business or person before the email, not the number in the email. People have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on scams like this.


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