Does this house look familiar?

If this is your house, are you aware that it's being "rented" out for $440 a night?!

This post is perhaps one of my more embarrassing posts as I'll share how I was almost scammed of almost $1000. Yep - I even called my mom to apologize that the Ivy League education she paid for still didn't "guarantee" me from being suckered by a scam artist.

To make a relatively brief story tediously (but hopefully helpfully) long, here are the details of my near loss (with the many mistakes I've made notated for your learning benefit--or at the very least, your amusement).

I was tasked to find a summer vacation home for my extended family. We all wanted something comfortable, clean, ideally near a beach or with a pool, pet-friendly, large enough for kids and adults alike, and reasonably priced. I found a few options on Craigslist (in hindsight, not the best place to be looking) and inquired about availability. As I waited to hear back from the home owners/listing agents, I forwarded the links to my family to see if they had any preferences.

One particularly responsive listing agent was a man by the name of "Richie." His quick email response was littered with tons of typos and spelling mistakes but he did get back to me quickly. I just assumed that he was quickly emailing from the road on his smart phone (Mistake #1).

His particular listing was the most attractive of all the options because of the sheer size of the house (8,000+ SF) and the very clean contemporary furnishings. The kitchen island in this house was bigger than my ENTIRE kitchen!

It was a good thing I did a bit of sleuthing (read "poking my nosey nose around in other people's business") as I found out more information on the property--information that lead me to discover the property was for sale and had been on the market for over a year. I figured the agent was trying to recoup some cash through renting it out as a vacation home (Mistake #2).

The agent informed me to reserve the place quickly as "there is a rush for this apartment this time" (Mistakes #3 and #4). In the 26 emails between me and Richie, he kept referring to the place as an apartment. Since when does a mansion with over 8,000 SF of living space on a lot size of 11 acres (that would be close to 450,000 SF....450 thousand!)constitute an apartment?! I kept noticing these little details but each one didn't really raise a red flag in my mind (Mistake #5) at least, not right away.

My desired dates were confirmed to be available (surprise, surprise) and the contract was emailed to me. The contract had tons of spelling and formatting mistakes (Mistake #6) - the teacher in me even corrected the formatting and spelling as I filled out the form. There was a pet clause in the contract and it wasn't filled out. I inquired about how much the pet fee would be and a couple of other things that were even downright ambiguous on the contract. Richie now seemed annoyed. He responded that there are no additional fees even with a pet and the cleaning fee was already included as with all other expenses. When I tried to call him on his number, which turned out to be an obscure upstate New York Magic Jack number (Mistake #7), I didn't bother leaving a message. I tried to Google his business and his name and check the Better Business Bureau website but nothing came up (Mistake #8).

Perhaps what clinched it for me (as if all the other indicators weren't enough) was the dollar amounts on the contract. Dollar amounts were notated with a colon, so my security deposit of $300 was notated as $300:00 and my nightly rate was notated as $440:00 (Mistake #9).

What a dolt! The light bulb above my head began to flicker on (granted it was a low 20 watt bulb). I went back on Craigslist and found several other listings with Richie's name on it. All his "rental properties" coincidentally were high-end properties for sale with photos posted on the internet. Undoubtedly he lifted the description (verbatim), details, and images straight from the listings.

Anyway, I'm now steering clear of Craiglist postings unless they also have listings with a reputable rental site. I feel like suck a sucker. Att least there wasn't a Nigerian Prince involved, right....?