Hello everybody,

I'm currently looking for a flat in Geneva (good joke, I know!) and I've come to realize that a very mean type of frauds is extremely active here.

They offer appartments via sites like antibis or immostreet. Those appartments seem almost too good and also too cheap to be true. There is no phone number, so you'll fill in the contact form - which, in itself, is not that unusual here. Then, somebody will contact you via e-mail, too, saying that he/she is abroad and he/she’d like to find a nice and reliable tenant ("behave as if it was your own flat").
In my case, as "evidence" of her good intention, the so called "VJ" (purposedly living in London) sent me a copy of her ID card and a CV with photograph – asking me to tell who I am, what I do in life, etc. When I had given some information about me with the same type of documents, she suggested passing via an escrow account service offered by Moneybookers. At first, it didn't seem strange to me to pass via a neutral third party service but I had a look at the Moneybookers website ("security information") and other relevant internet fora and had to realize that it all was a fake.

By the way: www.money-bookers.eu is not an URL of the existing company Moneybookers. Moneybookers has confirmed via e-mail that this is a case of fraud scam and that such services are not at all offered by Moneybookers.

On the internet, you will easily find similar cases of fraud attempts with WesternUnion.

To give you some names: I replied to an ad via e-mail (there was no phone number) and was then contacted by e-mail by a person under the name of "VJ". This person told me that flat had belonged to her late father. This week I found another interesting flat. I sent a message and received a reply by a so called „Loic Beaussier“ asking to answer some questions and give some information about me. When I replied that I’d be willing to send him information if this was a serious contact but that I first wanted to know whether he would suggest a transaction via Moneybookers as a next step, he never replied.

I am a freelancer and my phone data can easily be found on the Internet, so I don’t think that they’ll dare use my documents. But you never know – so here my name: Angelika Eberhardt. Please contact me in case this name should appear in relation with a dubious ad. I’d like to take action in that case!

And to say it very clearly: Don’t send information about your person unless you are 100% sure that the other person is serious and reliable!

Best regards

Angelika