Suspected international criminals successfully targeted at least two University students in a fraudulent online roommate scam and stole upwards of $5,000 immediately before spring break.
Representatives from the Eugene Police Department did not identify the two students, but loosely described the scams by which the con artists targeted the victims.
The suspects, who authorities believed are based overseas, contacted their victims by posing as respondents to an ad for a roommate in the Eugene area on Craigslist and similar websites.
The suspects then sent rent checks to the victims, saying they were students from abroad or out of town.
The suspects then contacted the victims and said they needed a portion of the rent check back because of travel or real estate fees and requested the money be sent via Western Union or MoneyGram, an online money transfer method.
Weeks later, the bank or banks where the original rent payments were cashed notified the victims that the checks had bounced.
EPD Community Service Officer Janina Batten said her department typically sees an uptick in these types of real estate and renter fraud cases before and during break periods because of the large number of people seeking housing immediately before the beginning of a term.  
“If someone wants you to send the money back, it’s a scam,” Batten said. “Craigslist is huge for criminals. They don’t have to rob your house to steal your money.”
Batten also said that in addition to posing as roommates, she knew of similar perpetrators who have posed as landlords or rental agencies.
In this scenario, a con artist, posing as a rental official and using the public records system for basic ownership information, will request rent or deposits through emails and phone calls on a property he or she doesn’t own. Upon receiving the check or MoneyGram, the individual disappears or is unable to be contacted, and the victim believes they will receive the keys to the property by mail. When they actually show up to move into the property, they discover the actual renter was never contacted about their interest in the property and has no idea who was posing as the fraudulent landlord or rental agency.
Batten recommended that the best ways to avoid being the victims of these crimes were to be suspicious of anyone who sends too much money in a check, or who asks for any of that money back or won’t meet in person. She also said it’s best to wait until the bank has processed a check, and certified it as genuine, before continuing in any kind of rental agreement or transaction.
Local authorities can be limited in their handling of these cases because so many of the perpetrators are internationally based. These varieties of online fraud cases are sometimes casually referred to by departments as “Nigerian” scams because so many of them seem to originate — or claim to originate — from West Africa and other international locations.
“We obviously don’t have the resources to be sending someone to Nigeria or London,” Batten said.
Detective Pat Willis of the EPD’s Financial Crimes Unit also said that because of the global scope of these crimes, there are restrictions as to what extent the EPD can become involved. Willis also said that students were often targeted in rental and real estate crimes because of what con artists see as their lack of knowledge in these areas.
“Students (are targeted because they) are younger, and have less life experience and can be more trusting, and because students are the ones most likely looking for roommates, because they’re likely living in a temporary housing situation,” Willis said.
Oregon Department of Justice Attorney General John Kroger recently released a warning concerning what is seen as a threat from international scammers posing as charities or relief organizations for the tsunami and earthquake disasters in Japan. Tony Green, a spokesperson for Kroger, said his department hadn’t seen any fraud reports related to the disasters in Japan yet. The department did see multiple scams related to aid for the earthquake in Haiti last year and felt that it was best to be prepared for any future scam attempts.
“It’s fairly typical for scammers to use current events to try and scam people,” Green said. “We have virtually no power to get people who are not in this country, (and) part of the issue is just figuring out who they are, and we often just don’t have jurisdiction over them if they are in another country.”
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