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How to Spot a Scam

Friday, January 23, 2009

Bob Draper Resurfaces

It appears that Bob Draper has returned and is again trying to scam property owners out of money. As stated before, please do not rent to Bob Draper. In addition Bob's fradulent check was issued from the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, which is based in Boca Raton, FL.

Name: Bob Draper
Tactic used: Pretends to be interested in renting property, issues fake check, then cancels reservations in an attempt to recover his initial deposit. The check he sends will on average bounce in 10 days, which is enough time for him to walk away with your money.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, and Bob Draper's current email is

bobdraper01@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

I posted the latest Bob Draper scam emails I received to your blog this past weekend. Since then I received a check and thought it might be worthwhile to provide the company information that was on the check and the UPS envelope. The check is drawn on Resource One of IL LTD in Springfield IL and the UPS mailing label lists Golden Eval in Bristol PA on the From line. There is a piece of paper in the envelope asking me to email payverifier@live.com for secure payment and further instruction. I think the payverifier piece is a new part of this scam. I have reported the whole thing to IC3. Thanks for your blog, it saved me money and time!

Anonymous said...

We have a Vacation Rental that Bob Draper is attempting to rent. His "wife" employers will be paying for their stay by sending a US Cashiers Check. Because he wanted to come the week-end of March 13th, I told him that it would need to be a personal overnight check that we could clear in three days before arrival.
Now that I know who he is, no thanks. Ours was a Craigslist listing as well. We are located in Humboldt County in Northern California. His given address was 48 Blackshaw, tootingway, London. swe54ue,UK,

Anonymous said...

I received an immediate response to my posting of a rental property which sounded to good to be true. after I asked for cash because it was too soon for me to get a check and have time to cash it, I never heard a another word. Until today, BOB DRAPER appeared, again this sounded suspicious so I googled his name and here he is! The other name to add is DAVID CLIM. This was the first name. Thanks to Craig's list they warn about scammers and both these letters sounded like the examples they gave.

Anonymous said...

We have a rental in Mexico, and received an inquiry from Bob. When we couldn't comply with his dates, he replied"Hello
I am interested,I will be coming on this vacation with my wife from UK,our trip will be sponsored by my wife's employers in the states and payment will be done by US certified check.we have decided to use the place from march 27 to april 3.please let me have the following information so that the check can be sent to you.

Name which you want to appear on the check:
Address (not P.O Box):
City:
State:
Zipcode:
Tel:
Total Amount

Hope to hear from you soon.

bob draper
48 blackshaw street,
tooting way,London
swe541ue,Uk"
from the same e-mail listed in the posting above on 2/15/09.
Thanks for your blog, which saved us from a great deal of annoyance and possible financial loss.

Missy said...

Ouch! I am usually quite cautious but I fell for this one, as the name was James Mark and the e-mail address was dr.jamesmarrk@gmail.com. I did wonder about that extra r! I don't understand the scam, but I also got this e-mail:

Hello
I am interested,I will be coming on this vacation with my wife from UK,our trip will be sponsored by my wife's employers in the states and payment will be done by US certified check.please let me have the following information so that the check can be sent to you.

Name which you want to appear on the check:
Address (not P.O Box):
City:
State:
Zipcode:
Tel:
Total Amount

Hope to hear from you soon.

james Mark
48 blackshaw street,
tooting way,London
swe541ue,Uk

Just to be cautious, I sent him my husband's work address -- I tend not to hand out my address to strangers -- and now I am glad I did. I also reserved the property for him, which I will rectify immediately!

Anonymous said...

Received the following from Bob Draper, replying to our craigslist ad for a vacation rental.


Hello
I am interested,I will be coming on this vacation with my wife from UK,our trip will be sponsored by my wife's employers in the states and payment will be done by US certified check.we have decided to use the place from april 22 to 25.please let me have the following information so that the check can be sent to you.

Name which you want to appear on the check:
Address (not P.O Box):
City:
State:
Zipcode:
Tel:
Total Amount

Hope to hear from you soon.

Bob Draper
48 blackshaw street,
tooting way,London
swe541ue,Uk

Anonymous said...

Bob Draper, Yun Phat, Lisa Chase, James Mark- there are hundreds of phony names for this address and used with this scam. Forget about trying to look out for one individual- it's a well known scam and once you're used to seeing the form letter that is sent, you might just stop responding. IF YOU DO RESPOND, this is what we say "As with most U.S. vacation rental companies, we are only able to accept credit cards (Master Card or Visa), personal checks, or cash directly deposited into our bank account for payment. If it is absolutely necessary to use a cashier’s check, there would be at least a two week waiting period while our bank verifies the funds and the check would have to be for the exact amount of the reservation- it is not legal for us to redistribute funds . While you may have the best intentions, the arrangement you have detailed is a well known scam that will not be accommodated by any U.S. vacation rental company. If you can make payment by one of our accepted methods and would still like to reserve a home, please let us know and we can help finalize the reservation." We keep this form letter response handy, JUST IN CASE someone is for real. Once we thought a 3 month inquiry was too good to be true, and were sure it was a scam, but we sent that letter anyhow. In the end it was a wonderful family from Saudi Arabia where credit cards are not often used, so they sent their cashier's check to a US friend, who called us and paid for the 3 month stay on his credit card in full. It was definitely worth giving them the benefit of the doubt, and anyone who is FOR REAL interested in renting your home will find a way to make other payment arrangements if you ask them to. NEVER take a cashier's check or money order unless you are willing to wait the 2-3 weeks for your bank to verify it (yes, they'll cash it at first, but when it comes back to the bank weeks later as fraudulent it's up to YOU to pay up!). Hope some of this helps- I really feel for the mom and pop businesses out there who don't know better yet....

LD said...

Oh my gosh, I wish I had googled Bob Draper and seen these helpful postings before I sent him my address and name. Hopefully there's no history of "bob draper" hunting people down and doing them harm... Does anyone know if I am in danger of identity theft or that sort of thing?

No money has been exchanged so at least that's safe. The e-mail address "he" was using was also, like the previous post, bobdraper01@gmail.com.

Here are the e-mails I have received:

5/28/09 Hello,
My name is Bob Draper ,I will like to know if my wife and i can spend 3 nights at your place.We will like to know if you have June 10 to 13 available.I will like you to get back to me with the cost and availability.

Thanks

5/29/09 Thanks for getting back to me,i really appreciate it,i will like you to get back to me
with other dates available.

Thanks

5/30/09
Hello
I am interested,I will be coming on this vacation with my wife from UK,our trip will be sponsored by my wife's employers in the states and payment will be done by US certified check.we have decided to use the the week of july 11.please let me have the following information so that the check can be sent to you.
Name which you want to appear on the check:
Address (not P.O Box):
City:
State:
Zipcode:
Tel:
Total Amount
Hope to hear from you soon.
Bob Draper
48 blackshaw street,
tooting way,London
swe541ue,Uk
+448715721628


6/3/09 Thanks for the payment info,the check will be issued to you asap and as soon as i get the tracking number from the issuers of the check,i will email you the tracking Number bcos i dont want any delay towards the payment because of the dates.I will be very happy if you can tell me more about the place.
Thanks while I will be looking forward to read from you about the
question i ask you.
Thanks and God Bless

Anonymous said...

I just received a check from a Mr. Kelvin Henstrick. I was very curious from the beginning due to his poor grammar and EXTREME interest in my craigslist posting. I just today received a $2,700 check in the mail for a $400 piece of furniture. Total scam of course. This site is great, and always remember that if a deal is to good to be true, 99.9% it is a scam.

Anonymous said...

I normally google potential renters before returning emails and thank goodness I do. I just posted the listing on Craig's List last night and got the below response this morning.

Hello,
My name is Bob Draper,I will like to know if my wife and i can spend 3 nights at your place.We will like to know if you have Aug 20 to 23 available.I will like you to get back to me with the cost and availability.

Thanks

The email address he used is bobdraper09@gmail.com. I'm so grateful I found this site!

Anonymous said...

Bob Draper struck again.
his email is now bobdraper02@gmail.com

good thing I googled him before I rented to him. it was too shady. deleted his email

Anonymous said...

"Bob Draper" is now using "bobdraper02@gmail.com" as the e-mail address - same type scam, I "googled" "Bob Draper" and came upon your site - Thank You for saving me a a large HEADACHE.

His current "address":
Bob Draper
40 Haly Gate
South Kensington
London, UK, SW7 5LR
+448715721628