We are in the middle of this exact scenario! S has an internship and is looking for a summer sublet. The subletter posted on Craigslist (already a red flag!) said he was out of state with his job in FL., and wanted to sublet at a fair price to give somebody a chance to live in a beautiful apartment. I told S that right there, it’s a scam!
I looked up the building, rents start at twice what the scammer is asking, I also found the same pics. he forwarded S; the pics he purported to be of his apartment, are of a larger apartment in the same building!
He sent S a lease agreement and claims the landlord is in another state, but said landlord permitting the sublet. It all sounded just too fishy. I continued sleuthing and I found the subletter on FB, and while appearances would not indicate he is, all his FB friends are Nigerian!
S is so disappointed, and still has nowhere to live for the duration of his internship
My nephew tried to sublet his apartment near DC last year. Because of covid, he was working out of Denver and tried to recoup his rent for 6+ months. He found a guy who wanted to move in, was willing to take it furnished, sounded good.
Turned out the guy was a scammer who would move in but never pay. Lucky for nephew the apartment management required subletters to fill out application and pay a sublet fee (guy was willing to pay!) and wouldn’t approve him.
In looking for apartments in Boston for my daughter, I have many times seen the same pictures being used for different apartments. I worked with a broker and a couple of apartments I forwarded her when she looked into them they were fakes (and I thought I was pretty savvy and had weeded out the fakes already).
@kiddie Is this your kid who is a Dr? Or am I mistaking you for another poster? If that is you, pm me for good locations in Boston. Your profile is private and can’t pm you
Nope my kid is not a Dr (you must have me mixed up with another poster). She did find a wonderful apartment and moved in January. She just renewed for another year (the lease from January was only until September 1). Not sure why you can’t PM. I will check my settings.
I have had several emails from different people over the past month telling me that the photos in my business website violate their copyright and demanding as much as $100,000 if I don’t remove them. I referred the emails to the company that hosts my website, and they assured me they have all legal rights to any photos they use. They said it is a scam that I should ignore. Would you ignore it?
Another trick is those innocent looking posts that people forward on their Facebook accounts (I just saw one asking where we honeymooned). Some of these are trying to phish for possible passwords or get answers to security questions.
I think I got scammed. On my credit card was a $200 charge from SQ medical …. The charge was on a day of week that I didn’t leave the house, no MD appointments. So, closed that credit card and let the company know.
Interesting. On my credit card today I noticed a $4.99 charge to an online gaming site - except none of us had even heard of the site and certainly didn’t use it. Googling about it, it appears you have to register, log on, and pay, so it’s really doubtful that anyone accidentally clicked on something and we got charged.
I called the CC company and they told me scammers often will charge a small amount on a card to see if it will work. If it does, then they will use it for something more, so they closed the account and will be issuing new cards. This made me groan thinking I’d have to change a bunch of automatic payments I have on that card, but they said they had a service that will change them all to the new number for me. Phew!
I’m glad I keep tabs on my cc’s every so often. If I didn’t I likely wouldn’t even bat an eye at $4.99 in the total considering the monthly bill is usually in the low thousands, esp when we travel. I don’t need to be paying for someone’s jet ski, car payment, or whatever next time.
Once I moved and changed my address with my bank, including the new zip code that my landlord gave me. Except it was wrong! The bank had automatically correct it on my card, so when I went to use it at a gas station, it wouldn’t work. So tried another gas station, nope. Finally went to a junky old station that didn’t ask for the zip code and it worked. Then I got a fraud control call. She told me that when people steal cards they will try to make a ‘swipe’ purchase at a place with no security cameras (this was a while ago) to see if they could get the card to work and buying gas was common.
I left the wrong zip code on the card as to me that was extra security as if they stole my car it was full of hints about my address, but they didn’t know the ‘wrong’ zip code.
