Newest Craigslist Scams - Apartment Housing Rental Scams (2023)

Introduction

Find out the latest scams when searching cheap Craigslist apartments for rent, we almost got scammed by two people. Emails from realtyagent.com aren't always legitimate - don't get tricked!

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Content

Hi everyone so I wanted to share an experience with you guys.

We had to look for a new apartment lately and we almost got scammed by two people on Craigslist, so I wanted to share the experience with you guys in case it helps you so if you're ever looking for short-term housing on Craigslist or you're looking for somewhere to stay during a vacation, renting a house, renting a condo, buying a house.

These are the two scams that we encountered and maybe you're gonna see some red flags.

If it applies to you, after searching on all the standard websites, we decided to look on Craigslist because we were finding some listings from actual apartment complexes that we weren't finding on those other sites.

So the first scam it was really convincing and they gave information that checked out.

It was this really nice place, it was under market value and they were paying for utilities.

It has a gym inside.

We really liked it so I emailed him and the next morning.

He emails me this really detailed, well-written response -.

He had his full name.

He had his occupation, he had where he was living, and he had a story about why he was in New York now and that I should drive around the area and see how I like it from what he says, it checks.

Out.

It makes sense we emailed him back and I asked him a bunch of questions like I just want to.

Let you know that we're serious applicants, because that's what he put in the title and are you actually in New York,? Can you give us a tour, and so he didn't write us back and then I was like hey.

You know he gives me his full name, his job and address.

Why don't I just Google it just to see what happens and he actually checked.

Out, he's an actual person on LinkedIn, so I signed up for a LinkedIn premium membership so that I can email him.

(Which I can cancel after a month) but I emailed him on LinkedIn and I said: hey.

Are you the guy who is renting out that condo on Craigslist I just want to make sure all the details match up, and then he didn't write me back and then the guy on Craigslist didn't email me back either and I checked Craigslist.

He actually refreshed and reposted that posting, but he didn't respond back to me.

You know in that same time frame and the sad thing is when you're really desperate like when your lease is coming up and you've looked at a lot of apartments like we have and you're, not finding the thing that you want, but this Craigslist posting somehow seems really good.

It clouds your judgment.

You know, especially since he was an actual person on LinkedIn.

We actually started to really consider.

Oh maybe we should live here.

So you know we had our list of priority order of places we wanted to stay, and this Craigslist posting was actually first.

We were actually thinking about not renting at this other place, because we were waiting to hear back from this Craigslist guy.

So.

We were looking on Craigslist still and I found another listing - it's just a little bit under market value.

It's not so big of a discrepancy that you go what this is clearly a scam.

It said that it was in a certain community.

It gave a community name so I googled, that community name and it says that it's like a community for people who are 55+ so I emailed the guy back and I said um.

Isn't this for a community of 55+ and I wasn't clear, but in my head I thought? Well, maybe you know you just need somebody who is 55+ to buy the place, but maybe they can let like their grandkids live there or something like that.

So maybe it would be okay if we live there.

It's, like you know your mind, concocts all these justifications and what-ifs.

So the guy actually wrote me back and he said no, you can live here.

People of all ages can live here.

The open house is in two weeks and since we're desperate and we're in a rush, I go well.

Could we go see it tomorrow or the day after, because we can't wait, you know, and then the guy goes well.

If you want to see it before, then then you have to make a reservation.

That's when the red flags went off in my head and I thought: okay, maybe I should look up like Craigslist housing scams and it turns out there's like a ton.

There's a ton of Craigslist rental scams just because I guess it's easy to grab pictures from an existing listing and post them on Craigslist, you're, pretty anonymous.

You can get people to pay an upfront deposit and you can scam people easily that way, and then the first guy wrote me back.

He had his supposed realtor email me to fill out a form and of course the form asked for all sorts of personal information.

So I went and I checked out all the different info in here I tried to find Joel Gibson as a realtor.

Just a lot of things started to not match up and then I went and looked at realtyagent.com, because that email looks really official and I found out that other people report scams from this email.

So you can pay for this realtyagent.com domain name and that's probably how a lot of people get scammed and then I found out that they pulled these from existing listings.

So not all Craigslist listings are bad.

We actually found our current place, which we really love.

It's really awesome from Craigslist, because it's from an actual apartment complex, they don't post on apartments.com or any of those other websites.

So yeah we ended up not getting scammed.

Thank goodness, we didn't pay anything or give out any personal information, but we were like this close and we almost lost out on the apartment that we're actually going to move into that.

We finally picked because we were waiting to hear back from one of these Craigslist scammers, which is really how much we were sort of attached to that idea and to what they were selling so they're very convincing, I hope that this video helped you guys and prevented you guys from getting scammed, please like and subscribe.

If you, like, my videos I'll, continue to share any helpful tips connected to traveling and booking traveling in the future.

When we come across them, see you guys next time.