RENTAL: BURNED and SCAMMED

I thought I was a streetwise guy alert to all the rental scams. I guess not. Here's the situation: I saw a listing on craigslist and responded to it. I arranged to meet the Agent "TIM" to look at apartments in Murry Hill last Sunday. I did verify that he was indeed under the employ of one of Manhattan's major agencies as a licensed real estate professional. He showed me a few apartments until a... [more]

I thought I was a streetwise guy alert to all the rental scams. I guess not. Here's the situation: I saw a listing on craigslist and responded to it. I arranged to meet the Agent "TIM" to look at apartments in Murry Hill last Sunday. I did verify that he was indeed under the employ of one of Manhattan's major agencies as a licensed real estate professional. He showed me a few apartments until a settled on a "good deal" on an apartment that looked several hundred dollars undermarket. He had all the air of legitamacy, the card, the letterhead,keys, breezing past doormen. etc. So we did the paperwork (again with all the appropriate letterheads for the rental agency") and I gave him $300 deposit: 100 for credit and 200 "to keep the deposit off the market and applicable to the first months rent. I awaited word for approval the next day. The phone rang and it was "TIM" saying that since the landlord was going to waive the last month's rent requirement, Tim's boss wanted to pad the application file with another $800 dollars to prove that I was "serious". I told him no can do and if they wanted proof that I was serious, I would show up at the office with cashiers checks payable to the landlord for 1st months rent and security. This must have stymied him since he exclaimed that the cell phone call was going to drop because he was about to "enter a tunnel" He called back and made the same pitch saying it was no big deal that I could even transfer the funds electronically to the rental agencies account. . Yes, this rang serious bells but I was thinking a bait and switch scam. I told him to have his boss call me. He said he'd push the application anyway withut the 800 bucks. To dissuade me from calling the office directly and to avoid talking to me directly after his failed attempt, he would text me messages every few hours with shit like "application on bosses desk, looks great! expect decision tonight or early tomorrow" The next day comes and I get a call from the president of the agency saying that "TIM" was a trainee, had no authorization to show apartments directly, certainly not that one, certainly not at that price (300 dollars cheaper than list), had no authorization to handle any money, had submitted bogus paperwork and had, in fact, disappeared. He apologized and immediately made arrangements and did, in fact, make me whole and refunded the $300 dollars which of course he never received from "Tim". Wish he could have gave me 2 vacation days and the money I will have to pay my landlord because I can't move out before the first. After a day of thinking about it, I contacted the President of the rental agent saying that though I realized he was a victim too, though I wish his screening process was a lot better, I was filing a police complaint as since 'TIM" had copies of all my paperwork, he might try to steal my identity since he knew I had stellar creit, etc. So I filed a complaint and the detectives are pursuing petit larceny and attempted grand larceny also identity theft.. We will see. So I thik what Tim did was become a trainee at an agency and then went renegade and mined their listings, keys, credentials, documents and then posted under market listings that were just shy of too-good-to-be-true and went to town. Collected money from me and god knows who else, set up an account for the second pinch for those who believed the "2nd deposit is needed to prove you're serious" pitch and transferred money to him, sent encouraging mesaages about application status to stall people from calling the office, faxing applicatons to the office just in case people did call, and when it got hot disappeared. BEWARE! [less]