The Country Code for Nigeria is 234

We all know about the long running Nigerian email scams, the ones where some "Prince" of some "Small Country" has cash he can't access and wants to give you a nice cut if you can front him a couple thousand dollars via Western Union. I guess people have finally caught onto that one, because now the new big Nigerian scam is renting you a place they don't own via Craigslist or some other source for rental listings.

A friend of mine has been looking for a reasonably priced rental in the Bay Area and sent off a few inquires to some nearly "too good to be true" listings. He recieved three practically identical emails in return, from three different "gentlemen", with only the property address, dollar amounts and contact phone numbers differing.

They weren't asking for cash with the first email, but required an odd rental application form to be returned for approval. The emails also had several other characteristics that smell of a farce. See for yourself.

Thanks for the email. My name is Thomas Hough the owner of the 1 Bedroom Apartment you are making inquiry of, I've had so many responses so far,however it is still available but I do have one person who is ahead of you. I'll rent it to whoever puts down the deposit .Rent includes water and garbage. My company sent me overseas and will probably be between Africa, India and the UK for another year or so. The last tenants I had just moved out and my family and friends all live on the east coast so I don't have anyone available to show the place but I can send you pictures of the inside but will have to ship you the keys and papers.

Here is the address:[property address removed]...Ready for immediate move-in!You can drive down there to take a look at it...i will be willing to rent my home out for the maximum of 5 years and below.I personally had wanted to sell the Apartment earlier on.But after long time deliberation between me and my wife Sarah we finally agreed on renting out the Home, because it was initially to be sold. But I really want you to take good care of the Apartment, as if it were your own home.I would want to know how soon you would want to move in, as I will be taking a 1 or 2 month upfront payment which mean the first and last months you will be staying in the Apartment including some utilities (Water, Internet and Garbage). I am asking for $670 1 month upfront payment and if you can pay $1340 for 2months you will be getting a 1 month rent free. I believe we should be able to help ourselves. including utilities because I want you to take a very good care of the Apartment while I am away.

i will like you to go ahead and fill out the rent application form so that will can proceed further and discuss on how to get the the keys and papers sent to you via Dhl or ups e.t.c, also are you ready to rent it now or when?.So here is the Rent Application Form Below..
========= RENT APPLICATION FORM ============
PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL

Also,Pls answer these questions below:

1)Your Full Name______________________________________
2)Present Address(where you reside now) & PhoneNumber______________________________
3)How old are you _____________________________
4)Are you married ______________________________ _____
5)How many people will be living in the Home___________________________
6)Do you have a pet _________________________________________
7)Do you have a car __________________________________________
8)Occupation _________________________________________________
9)How long are you willing to stay _________________________________________
10)When do you intend to move in _________________________________________
11)1 month Or 2 month deposit needed______________________________________
12) Pictures of all the Occupant that will stay in my Home______________________________________

Pet allowed.

I will use the information above to prepare the rental agreement , rent receipts and other documents. Make sure the correct information is type.Do reply with your both cell & Apartment number i am going to call you if your application form has been accepted or call me after filling the rental application form. A package containing the housing documents, property address with full description. Including the direction to the place and keys will be ship to you once you both agreed with the term and condition. Call me once you fill out the application form.Here is my contact number: +234-708-289-7758 or 011234-708-289-7758 i will be expecting your call to know how serious you are in renting my Home

Thanks & God Bless

Here are my redflags:

1. Weird use of capitalization and puctuation, like with "1 Bedroom Apartment" and no spacing after commas, etc.
2. Claiming to live overseas and having no one to show the place - Really? You've owned a home and don't even know a neighbor? Haven't heard of a property management company?
3. "I believe we should be able to help ourselves." - Huh? Writing generally has strange phrasing not uncommon to someone who's not great of writing or speaking English.
4. Weird text-based "rental application" - Most legit landlords will send a PDF version of a standard application, with questions geared so they can run a proper background or credit check. How old are you? Are you married? Do you have a car? How long are you willing to stay? Pictures of all the Occupants? - I don't even know where to begin.
5. Nigerian contact phone number - Um, yeah. That's a big one.
6. Property Address (which I removed for this post) - A quick internet search of the property address shows that this place is listed on the MLS for sale. It includes several photographs, including the exterior shot that the scammer sent with this email.

I know the Internet is a big place, filled with lots of opportunity to find what you need and solve problems. But you have to trust your instincts, pay attention and help others who might not be so savvy to look out for stuff like this.

This only happens because it's worth it to scammer. Enough people list out their pet names, attach a family photo and don't give a thought about how odd it is that they are potentially renting a place based on a couple photos and some guy who claims he wants you to "take care of the Apartment like it were your own Home." Clearly, it's lucrative enough to keep doing and that's a real shame.

Stay safe out there and if you come across listings like this be sure to report them to the host of rental listing site so they can be removed.

Have an Opinion about Microsoft Recertification?

Microsoft Learning is conducting a survey about the value of certifications and how those certifications keep pace with evolving technologies and products from Microsoft.  If you are interested in taking a short survey abou the topic, do so by August 8th.

For more information, please check out the original blog post on the Born to Learn blog.

TechNet Events come to California in August!

If you are looking for a way to learn more about cloud computing with Microsoft's Azure, look no further than the TechNet Event folks who will be offering up a half day session on building a private cloud.  The description from Microsoft is below.

Cloud Power! What are the options? Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud? Which one is right for your business? Join us as we discuss the basics of cloud infrastructures and the details of how to build your own private cloud. In 4 hours we will build a private cloud with you! We will talk about Hyper-V, Windows Azure, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and the Self Service Portal. We will demonstrate how to use these building blocks to build your own private cloud environment to host your own IT applications and services. We will also show you how to connect Public Cloud components to your Private Cloud in order to maximize the unique competitive benefits of each environment. Before this session is over you will have an understanding of the ins and outs of Microsoft’s Private Cloud Offerings

Visit Microsoft's World Wide Event calendar and find a location near you. But if you are in San Francisco the even will be on August 23rd.  For southern CA folks, it will be in Irvine on August 11th.

You Can't Send That From Here

Recently, an end user of mine was getting immediate NDR messages when sending to an outside party with the error message of "None of your e-mail accounts could send to this recipient."

Normally, I chalk these type of issues up to a temporary problem with the external server, but the fact that it was an immediate NDR indicated it was some type of internal problem. Also, the language of the error message seemed odd, as our users only have one email account and aren't configuring their office Outlook clients to connect to other POP mail services.

While my research didn't turn up the exact scenerio my end user was seeing, it came down to the fact that he replied to a recent email using the "mailto" address link from a previous message that had imbedded the "mailto:" in the email address and Outlook 2007 was mishandling it in some way.

The link had then updated his Outlook autocomplete file to include the "mailto", so every time he tried to send something else to same address, the error reoccured. We had to delete the autocomplete entry and retype the email address to make sure everything worked properly again.

Their is a hotfix (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2475888) that address several issues, including this one.I didn't apply the provided fix at this time, since the issue has only come up once so far. But I'll be on the lookout for more of this in case a mass deployment of the fix is required for our desktops.

PacITPros Hits July with a Storm of Events!

Don't let the summer slip by without taking advantage of some of the free or low cost events brought to you by Pacific IT Professionals. 

San Francisco July 5th Meeting - The meeting sponsor is OpenDNS!  Many network admins go to great lengths to secure their networks using costly security appliances, all the while leaving a critical network layer – the Domain Name System - unprotected. This discussion explores the way malware and botnets leverage the DNS to infiltrate your network and cause damage that costs you both time and money. And also how you to easily secure your DNS layer and smartly stop command center communication between malware and your network, rendering the malware harmless. Secure your DNS and block malware and botnets once and for all, before they ever even infect computers on your network, and cut off malware that’s already infected your network at the knees. Protect every device at your company, everywhere it travels.

Los Angeles, July 12th - Windows Deployment from ACT to ZTI with Stephen Rose - Do you know how to use the free tools to move your users from Windows XP to Windows 7 and Office 2003 to Office 2010 in less than 30 minutes? Paying money for deployment tools is so 2000!  In this session, Stephen will show you how to use the many free tools available to manage and deploy Windows, Office and Internet Explorer while reducing cost and ensuring you never having to manage multiple images again. We will cover MDT, ACT, MAP, WDS, the PoC and other tools that will do network inventory, application compatibility, shimming, image management and automated Windows and application deployment.

San Francisco, July 15th - Deploy Windows 7 Using Microsoft’s FREE Deployment Tools - MAP, ACT, WAIK, MDT, WDS and SCCM – which tool does what? In this one day jam-packed session you’ll learn how Microsoft's free deployment tools can help you get Windows 7 up and running as quickly and easily as possible!