Single Room, Fully Furnished, Rent Inclusive of SCAM!

My house share hunting goes something like this:

The majority of my time is spent doing this:

Occasionally, something amazing like this will happen:

When an email requesting to view the place is sent, a reply with the following words is received:

The poorly written email explains that the landlord and flatmates are unfortunately not in town, but the landlord is willing to travel down to London to show me the place as long as I can prove that I have the funds for a deposit and rent. I am requested to have a close friend or relative transfer money to me via MoneyGram, have the transfer receipt scanned and then a copy sent to the potential landlord.

I, like most people, respond like this:

Unfortunately, a percentage of well-meaning but incredibly naive individuals respond like this:

With the following result:

By Edwin Tan (c) 2009

I have no idea what accent she's meant to have. All I know is that with a copy of the transfer receipt and a fake ID, she's scammed someone out of their money.

Moral of the story: Gumtree sucks.

PS - Nah, it doesn't all suck. The "Missed Connections" section is pretty funny.