Scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, baked beans, sausage, ... and scam!
Just a quick follow up story on our apartment hunt.
Even if we ended up using a broker which is the fastest, easiest and safest way to find an apartment in New York City, craig's list did help us in our search and I would recommend anyone not familiar with the NY real estate market to have a look on the website before starting his search for an apartment. Thanks to the site, you get a pretty good idea what you get in return for your budget (and in our case, it gently prepared us that our "Brussels apartment" budget was maybe a bit too optimistic, i.e. way too low!). So have a look...
... but renters beware! There are a lot of Internet scams these days, and the real estate market is not different. When browsing craig's list, I stumbled upon a too good to be true apartment: a huge loft in Gramercy Park way below our budget! Ok, you do suspect deep inside that this can't be right, but your naive side just thinks: "What if this is our lucky break?" So Ward sent an e-mail. Summarized, this was the reply: "Hi, I'm a good American citizen who had to transfer to the UK for my job at Big Oil Company X with registered office at Y. I wanted to sell my apartment but the market got inflated (?) so now I want to rent but only to people who will take good care of it. So if you are willing to send me three months rent in cash, it's yours! My son will give you the keys..." Hmmmmm... So, first thing I did is google the e-mail address. Nothing. Secondly, we called the man - he answers us that indeed, the apartment is still for rent and we can get it if we pay in cash. Thirdly, we called the Oil Company X - they've never heard of this man! Finally, I google the address of the loft for rent... seems that the exact same loft is for sale for - of course - a huge amount of money. Congratulations, you almost got scammed!
Luckily, we questioned the whole thing... but others aren't so lucky. When doing some further research on the Internet, I found out that many people have already handed over their money to a person claiming to be the owner of the apartment who then just disappears in thin air.
So, craig's list: use with care!
Links:
Website where you can find and report scammers
Article on NY rent scams
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