Craigslist Scams

Over this past weekend, I was subject to a scam on Craiglist! While it sounds really terrifying, I was lucky enough to realize it happened before I sent in any money or got further hooked into the scam. Apartment hunting is stressful enough for all of us and to have people trying to take advantage of vulnerable people really gets me. But at least there was a lesson to be learned in all of this and I’m more than happy to share it with you.

The first clue that something was up with this particular ad was that it sounded too good to be true. The price was so much cheaper than everything else I was looking at and it had everything I wanted! Bedroom, bathroom, appliances, everything. But hey, sometimes miracles happen, right?

So I shot an email their way saying I was interested and was amazed to get a really quick reply. The person I was in contact with told me he and his family had moved out of town so they couldn’t open up the place to show me but if I would just take a look at the pictures, they would give me all the information I needed. Red flag number two! Never take a place you can’t take a look at before you rent it. It’s kind of a no brainer but these people weave some elaborate tales.

Lastly, I received another email too soon saying that they wanted to entrust me with the apartment because I sound like a nice girl and that in order to get the keys I would have to send them money through Western Union Transfer. I had never heard of sending money this way and it raised another red flag for me. I looked up the “company” and found out that it was the root of many scams. It’s a way for the scammer to get your money in an almost untraceable way and they’ll just skip town with your money and you won’t get anything in return.

It was a quite awful experience knowing that I could have potentially sent money off to someone with no intention of helping me. Luckily, I had enough suspicions to look up what a Craigslist scam looks like and this one fit the bill in all ways. I also have a friend who happened to be in the real estate business in the area and sent the ad her way. She confirmed that the so-called leaser didn’t even own the property and my suspicions were right that this was indeed a scam.

I’m grateful that I was able to catch this before anything drastic happened. My dad helped me out in doing damage control and the friend that confirmed it was a scam offered to get the police involved. I don’t think any lasting damage was done and hopefully this was a cheap lesson learned. If you want to read more about Craigslist scams and how to recognize them, this article did wonders for me and helped me confirm my suspicions. Happy Apartment Hunting and good luck!

Craigslist can be a great resource but you have to watch out for scams! Be careful out there!