Nearly scammed

[shootingstar]

it nearly happened to me recently.

If you ever want to rent a place and the so-called "owner" lives in another country (for him, he claimed the U.K.) and has the keys to his place.. There is a scamming scheme to try to get you (gullible prospective tenant) to wire security deposit to a pay-day loan company (like Western Union), send keys and contract via middleman (this case was a cargo tranport company!) to you. Yea, right.

The rent looks low and good, pretty pics of place shown, etc.
I was pursued online consistently for a few days. Then I dropped the chap when I realized he wasn't answering my questions about the coveted apartment. And also the middleman company's website didn't work, meaning it led me to a non-existent/removed domain. Just front fake website pg.

Then I asked a financial advisor at my bank (one of Canada's big 5 banks) who was handling another financial matter of mine. He told me immediately that Western Union has scammed his clients..as soon as Western Union gets a hold of your account, they will debit/deduct often from account for high interest loan rates..etc. He was told by a police officer that the police have a serious challenge to locate the culprit..because often it's only an email address. Western Union will never pursue investigations for a client who is scammed, etc.

That's my story. But serious enough escape, thought I would share, as a warning.

Admittedly with the foreclosure crisis in the U.S., increased problems of online fraud, guess my antennae is just more perked up!

[malkin]

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

[Koronin]

When looking for a place to rent before we moved, I saw a lot of those type of things on craigs list. With all the scams out there I decided to be safe and go through a real estate agent to helped us find the place we are currently renting.

[JennK13]

Yes, when we were looking to rent the beginning of this year, we saw more bogus ads than real ones. I was so irritated because we were having such a hard time finding a place, that I couldn't help myself and started messing with some of the scammers.
I emailed them after they told me they were out of the country, and told them we were, too. That we were missionaries coming back to the states from South America, so I would need to have them make special arrangements for us to get the keys and asked for them to send me a rental agreement to look over so we could agree to the terms. This went back and forth for a week and I can't believe the scammers really even continued the conversation.

[Koronin]

JennK13, LOL that is a good one. I'll try to remember that for next time.