New Home Exchange Scam

You should always respond to every home exchange inquiry, right? Sometimes I get an email so suspicious I don't even want to respond and thus give the person my email address

I immediately forward inappropriate emails I have received thru a swap club to that business' administrator.

We have a responsibility to the home exchange community to protect each other. Stop weird spammers before they find a victim.

Here is one such creepy request, received by reader Diana, and her thoughts on it:

"Nicole, While you are talking about the messages that people send, I thought this ridiculous one that I got might prove useful.  When I clicked on the link for the home info, I discovered that they had not taken the time to fill out their membership page.  Nothing was filled out, not even their location.  I responded, telling them that I couldn't even answer their request because they had not even told me where they are, they sent of a quick response, but still made no real effort to give me and info about them.  I do not know if this is a man, woman, family.  Because I would be a "real life saver" and this person "needs to stay away for a while" I paused to wonder if they were on the lam.  I would be curious to find out if anyone actually responded with interest.  I continue to love your blog, Diana F"  

Here is the actual request Diana received from the mystery exchanger:

"heyfirst of all i would be pleased if u just you are interested in exchanging your house with mine.mine is not as big as yours ofcourse it is just an apartment, and it is not in asia or america either,but wat i need tell u that i really need to stay away for a while and if you helped you would be a real life saverthanks"

Let's not let a tiny percentage of scammers spoil the home exchange party. If anything makes you uncomfortable about a request, let the exchange club know. They cannot keep their members safe unless you let them know what is going on.

Diana is a polite person but I wouldn't even respond to someone like this. Don't let them know how to make their come-on more appealing. Don't give them any sort of hook to try to scam you further.

And if a home exchange contact doesn't seem quite right, for whatever reason, it isn't. Move on.

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