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Ask HN: Should I do anything when encountering a Craigslist apartment scammer?

by macphisto178 on 1/7/16, 10:42 PM with 1 comments

Looking for apartments in LA. There are several postings by a guy named Dan; the places are clean and slightly cheaper than market rate. My gf and I applied for one of the places, sent in an application and got quickly approved. Red flags were obvious:

- could not come visit the place - could not arrange a meeting as he is out of town on business - phone number in the ad is dead - the "landlord" email was some random name "@landlord.com" - payment can be only sent via wire transfer direct into bank account (we asked about Paypal) - sent another email under a fake email with a bogus application that no right-minded landlord would accept, and was accepted quickly

Here are a few listings though there are a bunch more:

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/sub/5376701320.html

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/sub/5376720622.html

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/sub/5368761400.html

This being Craigslist, is there a point of "reporting" him? How would one even do that?

  • by DrScump on 1/8/16, 9:09 AM

    You could try reporting to law enforcement; CL seems to take little interest in avoiding or stopping fraud.