Here's the deal. I'm out of the country, visiting Nigeria on urgent business. I can't be there to have you sign a lease, but I need a renter right away. You send me the first months rent, $800, to my address in Nigeria and I'll send you the keys to the house. When I get back, we can sign the lease.
This is a bit of a new twist on a classic scam.
I was talking to a real estate agent today and this is what he told me. Sounds crazy right? But he gets calls about his properties all the time from people that saw an add on Craigslist for a property at about half the going rent. They drive by to look at the house and then see his sign. They call the agent/property manager, fortunately, and not the number or email in the Craigslist add. They've been duped, almost. Some are not so lucky.
The Internet is not nearly as safe as you think it might be.
I am familiar with this scam.. as someone tried it on me when I was trying to rent my house. They seemed completley legit.. until they wanted to wire me more money than the deposit, just to have me give them money back. Who would do that?? They then proceeded to use my add and my pictures to try to scam more people and advertising MY house at about half the price. I had people who were previously interested get almost mad at me for reducing the price to much without telling them. The scammers had used the info that I had given them through our emails to make the ad seem very real. It was so wierd. Craigslist can be very great, but also very sketchy.
ReplyDeleteOff topic ~ Just have to tell you that you have great taste in music. Your "favorites" on your about page are almost exactly like mine. Especially, The Cure. Each one of their songs holds a particular memory for me. Power of music!
ReplyDeleteGlad to find your blog!
Maggie,
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how people think of ways to scam other people. You can't go through life not trusting people, but you have to be ever vigilant it seems.
Tara,
:-) great is greatly subjective when it comes to music. I just know what I like and I'm not going to let anyone tell me otherwise! There are certainly many powerful influences in our lives...and I think often I'm surprised by them.