“Craigslist Rental Head Scratchers”

Photo by Joanna Hiatt Kim

Ed. Note: If it seems too good to be true, especially on Craiglist, it is 99% a scam. I can’t tell you how many houses I see for $600/month when looking for my daily rental picks…

“Dear PoPville,

I finally started exploring the renting portion of Craiglist and have come across something that seems pretty sketchy. I’ve reached out to two properties that seem too good to be true but just on the line – $1650 – $1700 for spacious one bedrooms – and recognized similar behavior between the two.

The properties had two different “unit managers” but both started by asking for my real email, sending me apartment information in a separate thread, and then sending the following message:

“Hello ____,

The unit can be rented furnished or unfurnished and one parking spot is allocated to the unit at no extra cost. It is currently still being occupied at this time, however it would be vacated by October 1/2nd. However, we’ve been receiving quiet a huge number of emails from prospective tenants but the landlord has not been very comfortable with what we have so far. The landlord is a bit selective (NOT discriminating) in accepting a suitable responsible tenant, Pet policy the unit is pet friendly at no extra cost.

Therefore we have set up an online questionnaire of basic questions the landlord would ask anyone interested in renting his/her property and also as a form of screening applicants. There are no credit cards or payment required.

Fill out the rental application form on the link below;https://docs.google.com/ forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflkPU7zeqfXb p2enlxZfah0_uB0JF6cUQ490wAtNHb dxZ-yw/viewform?c=0&w=1

If your application is approved, you’d get a follow up email from me within 24 hrs.

Good luck and thank you.

Kind Regards”

I was prepared for these listings to be fake and for them to potentially request a deposit before seeing the unit, but what’s the point of sending a google form? I opened it once and tried to click through to the next page without entering details, but couldn’t and didn’t feel as though it was worth it.

Do you know what’s behind this scammy behavior? Increased time spent leading to more trust, maybe?

Links below:
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/apa/d/washington-spacious-1-bedroom/7178280394.html
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/apa/d/washington-massive-1bed-1bath-in-dupont/7189959316.html”