Online Dating FAIL!
November 6, 2010Craigslist Housing Scam Pt2.
November 8, 2010The owner of my house contacted me yesterday and informed me that I was going to have to move out by the end of the month because he and his wife are going through a divorce and he needs the house back. My lease was up in August and even though I met with him, he never came back like he said he would to have me resign the lease for another year. I just kept paying him monthly as usual. Now he’s giving me about 30 days to leave and since I have no contract with him, there’s nothing I can really do about it but find a new place and move out.
I was really excited to see that many homes listed on Craigslist.com mentioned I wouldn’t have to come up with first, last, and security deposits to get in a home. Since I didn’t really have enough notice to find a new home and plan on moving, it would work out great for me. I emailed each one I found was nice and today I got back all these responses mentioning the owner of the house was out of the country on some sort of work leave or mission trip. They ask for all my information and I immediately assume figure out that these are all Scams.
Any real home owner is going to want to meet with the renter and make sure that they are the right type of person they want living in their home. I’m writing this blog to state that 99% of the time, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Here’s an Example of one email I received:
“Hello,
It’s my great pleasure that you are interested in our lovely 3BR/2BA Single Family home for rent. I am Mr GUSTAVO A PEREZ the owner of this home,Before now we resided in this home and presently we have Moved out due to my transfer as a matter of my profession,where I work as a volunteer with Catholic Revival programme at the Ermita de San Antonio (St. Anthony Hermitage)here in Spain(Madrid)And my wife who is a missionary’s dealing with Bible Translation and literacy worldwide.
As soon as we settle down here I had a thought of selling the house so I have to look for an agent, after getting one, we got a deal but later my wife advised against that. I reasoned with her and accepted her advise. So I contacted the agent back and requested for my keys and documents. Later we decided to have the house rent out, we would have give the same agent this job also but the truth of the matter is that the agent would want to handle it professionally and the occupant may not be able to reason along with him later. If you notice, you will discover that the price we are offering is far below standard price, this is enough for you to know that we are not after the rental fee but the absolute care for the property.
We will be serving for a long term and now our home is locked up now and presently we have found a new home here which we will be staying for a very long term which might
last 5 years in (Spain,Madrid) and presently our lovely home is still available for rent for ($1200)as first month rent including the utilities like asher, dryer, fireplace, internet access and garage.
More so, Now that we on Retreat program over here. Please I want you to note that all we will want is a very honest and neat person,so i will solicit for your absolute
understanding and maintenance of this home and want you to treat it as your own, i am with the keys and documents here with me which will be sent to any responsible and
interested tenant through FedEx further more you have to undergo some processes before i could be willing and convince to let my home to any tenant. The money is not the
main problem but i want you to keep it tidy always. I also want you to let me have trust in you as i have always stand on my word.
****RENT APPLICATION DETAILS****
Please if you are ready now to occupy the house kindly provide the information below for record purpose
PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF
Full Name__________________________________________________ Home Phone ( & nbsp; )________________________
Date of Birth_________________________________
Other Phone ( )___________________
Current Address_______________________________Apt#________ City__________________ State______ Zip________
Reasons for Leaving____________________________Rent $__________Phone ( )____________________________
Are you married____________________________
How many people will be living in the house____________________________
How many people will be living in the house____________________________
Do you have a pet____________________________
Do you have a car____________________________
Occupation____________________________
How soon can you have the deposit and rent payment sent to me_________________________
How soon do you want to receive the keys________________________________________
Move In Date____________________________
Your Family Pictures____________________________
Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can have it in my file in case of issuing the receipt for you and contacting you.Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the keys to you,please we are giving you all this base on trust and sincerity so I won’t like you to disappoint us.
NB: You can go check the neighborhood and get back to me for further discussion.I have recently remove my home from the market cause my wife advice me not to sell it any
longer,the sign post will be removed once i get any responsible tenant cause my agent is not around now,so you ignore the sign post cause i have stop dealing and contacting the Realtor for too much fees i pay trying to ripe me off.It is available for a long term lease as we will be here for 5 years and also intend buying a new home on getting back to the states.
Rent:1200
Deposit:800
Bedrooms 3
Bathrooms 2 full, 0 partial
Sq Footage 1,400
Parking 2 dedicated
Pet Policy ok
Address:5912 SW 42 ST MIAMI FL
Best Regards
GUSTAVO A PEREZ AND FAMILY”
I Replied to see if this person would meet in person and they just wrote back, “I’m not in state”.
Just to fuck with them I wrote back again and said that I went to the house and the people currently living in it informed me that the house was not for sale. Lets see if they even respond to that.
6 Comments
im super sick of my battery on my android going down so fast, it annoys the crap outta me, see what happens, find a good site and BAM my battery is dead, so yeah, i luckily had enough battery to read this and post the comment haha, i have no life. yay me!
Thank you, my husband and I decided to leave our appartment complex ASAP due to some drugs/weapons/homocides that happened recently. I began looking on Craigslist and have 2 responses, both are from this person, using the name “OTON HERNANDEZ YOLANDA”. They name was in all caps, and the grammer was off, not TOO unusual but the CAPS thing triggered me. I found your blog, and THANK YOU so much, being desperate to get my family out of here ASAP, I really don’t need to lose any money to begin with. THANK YOU< THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to thank you who ever you are that posted this up. I lost $1703.00 to this guy and thanks to this post I didn’t lose anymore money. I was desperate and loss my better judgment and my site to see that this was a scam, even though I had a feeling I went ahead and proceeded with it. Now I’m in a deeper hole. This guy has mine and my husbands name and a picture of my family. I’m so very afraid that he will use it to scam someone else and put them in the predicament that me and my family is currently in. Please, any advice on what to do?
I am so sorry that you lost so much money to these scumbags. The only thing I can really suggest at this point is that you contact the authorities and hope that they give the case to the feds. Unfortunately, because western union strictly states that you should not send money to people you don’t know they see it as you being at fault for sending the cash to a stranger. Also, because they live in another country, it’s hard for them to catch these people where they may not have jurisdiction. I wish you the best of luck with this, but consider it a very expensive learning experience.
Yes, I didn’t ever think that this would happen to me or my family but a lesson learned and hope to not ever let myself be in such a situation again. I do hope that no one else will fall for this scam. I also think that he or a partner works for western union, for the fact that he knew that I went back and picked up the 2nd payment that I had sent. When talking to western union, they only told me how sorry they were that this happened to me and that they will investigate. I asked if they found out who was behind all this, would they be able to send a picture and name to me. I also asked if they knew where (what city, country) they picked up the money at and would not tell me. But he knew that I picked up my own money. This is really sad on how people in this world has become. Thank you…..
yes you are right 4 times I also became the victim.We should take care when dealing with people we dont know.