I've been taking some time over the past few weeks to do some apartment hunting. I've found that using sites like
www.craigslist.ca
www.viewit.ca
www.rentersden.com
have been extremely helpful for me in this hunt. There's one site tho, that I have a love/hate relationship with and that's Craigslist. I'm sure we are all familiar with how Craigslist works - completely free, super easy and crazy popular (therefor a great spot to get attention for a sale). The problem with this site is because it is so easy to use, it's also super easy to create a SCAM with.
Here's an example of the scams I find on Craigslist quite often:
FOR RENT: BEAUTIFUL ONE BEDROOM APT, FULLY FURNISHED, PRIME LOCATION, blah, blah, blah... ridiculously cheap price! It's usually just cheap enough to catch my attention or raise my curiosity but not cheap enough to flag as a scam right away. So I write them an email:
"Hi there, I'm interested in learning more about your apartment for rent. Where exactly is it located? Are utilities included? Laundry? Parking? Internet? Pets? Fill me in... And let me know when a good time to stop by and take a look at the space is."
It's when the response to these emails come in that I first laugh out loud at how obvious of a scam this is... but then that laughter just turns to anger for wasting my damn time. Here's a recently email response that I got to an apartment that I inquired about:
Thanks for writing regarding my apartment, before we proceed on this
rent I'd like to make a brief introduction about myself.. I am a
psychologist.I am 48 years, divorced with only daughter presently in
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY in UNITED STATES studying poultry
science. The nature of my work has made me much of a traveler and has
really exposed me to different types of race.. My Family and i moved
down to UNITED STATES, and that is the reason why i need a responsible
person to rent my apartment. The apt is available immediately. It is
located at the below Address: 454 Rosewell Ave, Toronto, Ontario M4R
2H8.
This unit is Available for immediate move in. Modern 1 bedroom & 1
bathroom, 1000sqft (square foot) apartment is strategically located in
a very cool and lovely environment e.g Casa Di Luce Avenue,Royal
Lighting, Shoppers Drug Mart,Havergal College,Lawrence Park Collegiate
Institute, Lawrence Park Cl,John Ross Robertson Child Centre e.t.c
with five (5) appliances including dish washer with in-suite laundry
room and plenty of storage space. Professional and mature neighbours ensure
peaceful living arrangements. Utilities such as heater, washer/dryer,
electricity, Internet are also included in the rent.
I am looking for a peaceful and responsible person to rent the apt and
help me look after the apartment. The rent per month for the apartment
is $700 and damage deposit is $400 including utilities like
hydro,water, internet, cable e.t.c,this damage deposit is refundable
after the leasing period (i.e at your last month) . I want you to know
that I am a kind and honest man and i also spent a lot on my property
that I want to give you for rent, so I will solicit for your absolute
maintenance of the apartment and I would want you to treat it as your
own, I would like you to keep it tidy all the time I also want you to
let me have trust in you as I always stand on my word. I will like you
to drive by to the building today to view the exterior of the building
for you to know where the apartment is located and get back to me if
you like it so that I can forward the full interior pictures for you
to view and have an idea how beautiful and spacious the inside looks
and then we can proceed.
What the hell man?? I didn't ask for all that! LOL So if you'll notice please:
- A lot of the email screams TRUST ME, TRUST ME, TRUST ME
- There's always someone who lives far away, sometimes I've gotten responses about how they're in Africa but their wife is in the US
- They don't ask shit about me
- They don't respond or answer hardly any of my questions I asked in the first place (although I'll give this one credit, he did answer the where,
- Their English is usually not that great (in some cases terrible).
- Their pictures of the apartment always lure you in cause they're the most beautiful apartments you've ever seen. LOL
"Well because I'm not there, I can't really show you the space. What I can suggest is that you send your deposit $$$ to my wife at this address in the US, and once she gets the $$ in the mail, then she can send you the keys to take a look. If you like it, great we can get the paperwork done, if you don't like it, you can return the keys and we will return the money."
Wow, can I just say - REDFLAG??!! LOL
Once I even responded to this and told them how scammy this seemed and how there's no way I would send $$ to a perfect stranger. To which their response was: "After our communications, I don't think we are strangers anymore (I've even had one guy send me pictures of people he claimed were him and his wife!) and you have to understand that we've been burned in the past, given the keys to people and had the apartment trashed or copies were made and they stayed there without paying us anything...blah blah blah"..
Well holy shit if you're that dumb, and can't come up with an alternative solution then I don't want you as my landlord. Stop wasting my time. LOL As a landlord, you don't just give your keys to people... why wouldn't you have an arrangement with a neighbor or something?
Anyway, I'm not going to go on and on about how crazy I think this whole setup is... but also how common it is.. the past 2 times I've been apartment hunting, I've came across stuff like this about 3 times. Different places and different stories but always the same ending - GIVE ME YOUR $$$ BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE.
Please people? I'm so curious to know - does this scam actually ever work? Are people really that dumb and send their $$ to people they don't know? I can only imagine that because there are stupid people in this world, this scam is probably quite profitable. Incredible I say... absolutely incredible.
