Rental scam

So I've been trying to find a new place to live. I found a really nice property and contacted the individual. It was apparent from this response that it was a scam (probably from a hacked account).

Below is the email, followed by my response.

Hello Anthony,

Thank you for your prompt response, it's my pleasure. I previously live in the flat before i was transferred to Newcastle due to my job but there's no problem in inviting you for the viewing so I will need to take a day off from work in other to come for the viewing. The lady is currently on Holiday and she will be back on 10th of October. I have had lots of bad experience from potential tenants who will asked me to travel to London for the viewing but they will fail to show up, some will even asked me to wait after the viewing because they don't have cash on them and they will not come back. I have consulted my lawyer and we have resolved that any potential tenants should be able to prove in the following way in order to determine who is financially buoyant and that he or she can stick to appointment when scheduled and able to pay his/her rent when due.

So before I can come to London to show you the flat, I will need to see a proof that you are financially alright, truly interested in my flat and not a time waster, I will not ask you to email me your bank statement or payment slip because i have been fooled with fake bank statement and payslip. what you are going to do is this; you will make the transfer of one month rent plus security deposit(£1000) via western union money transfer by using your own name as the sender while the name of your friend or relative as the receiver. here is how you do the transfer; you will go to any nearby western union outlet/shop very close to you with £1000, when you get there, you will tell them you want to make a transfer using their service and you will be given a payment slip to fill, below is what you are going to fill on it;

Sender's name: Your own name

Receiver's name: Either your friend or relative as the receiver

Sender's address: Your own address

Receiver's address:London, United Kingdom

Amount to transfer: £1000

Once you fill it, you will give the form to the agent with the £1000 cash and he/she will give you a payment receipt, you will scan the payment receipt and email to me for confirmation and i will call western union customer care here in Newcastle to confirm if you truly do the transfer and once I confirm that the money is available to be pick up by the receiver, I will buy my train ticket to London immediately, email it to you so that you can know the day and time I shall be arriving for the viewing.

I will come and pick you and the person you transfer the money(either your friend or relative) at the tube station, take you to the flat for the viewing and after the viewing if you are ok with the flat, you will sign all the contract agreement forms and your friend will collect the money out from western union and pay me in cash. the flat keys and all the flat documents will be handed over to you immediately.

A little amount of money would be charge for the transfer but i don't want you to worry about that because my lawyer had advised me to be responsible for it so that you will not have anything to loose in the transaction just that I need to make sure you will not make me waste my time if I should come to London for the viewing, it will be refunded back to you immediately we meet for the viewing, so either you rent my flat or not, the charges would be given back to you. I will be happy if you can email me back now so that i can know how to schedule my time in other to meet you for the viewing, i hope to read back from you as soon as possible.

Cheers

Darren

MY RESPONSE - an email to abuse@hotmail.com ...

to:		abuse@hotmail.com
cc:		********@hotmail.co.uk

(I removed the email address in case this is actually a hacked account)

Hi Hotmail

There is a scam coming from this account. Below is a Bing search on one of the sentences in the email (lower). As you can see it's a commonly indexed scam.

Please block this account.

And to Darren (unlikely that it is your real name)... you can go fuck yourself :)

Many thanks Hotmail dudes.

How to parse Flickr Image Urls

I had to deal with parsing the multiple flickr urls that exist to access an image.

Did you know that there are many different Url's for a single photo?

Here are the one's I've discovered:

flickr.com/photos/userId/id/in/set-setId/
flickr.com/photos/userId/id/in/photostream/
flickr.com/photos/userId/id/someone else's list/
flickr.com/photos/userId/id/datetaken/
flickr.com/photos/userName/id/in/set-setId/
flickr.com/photos/userName/id/in/photostream/
flickr.com/photos/userName/id/someone else's list/
flickr.com/photos/userName/id/datetaken/
flickr.com/photo.gne?id=id

And here is some code to strip all these suckers to get the photo Id:

public string GetFlickrPhotoId(string url)
{
string s = url.ToLower();

// remove everything after /in/ if it exists
s = s.Substring(0, s.IndexOf("/in/") > 0 ? s.IndexOf("/in/") : s.Length);

// remove url, user name, userid, photo.gne?id=id, "/"
s = s.Substring(s.Contains("/") ? s.LastIndexOf("/") : 0, s.Length - (s.Contains("/") ? s.LastIndexOf("/") : 0));
s = s.Replace("photo.gne?id=", string.Empty);
s = s.Replace("/", string.Empty);
return s;
}