Craigslist scams targeting renters desperate for affordable apartments:
This is a good article from the NY Daily News about how a con artist by the name of JoAnne Smith may be using the alias of JoAnn Rinaggio to swindle desperate apartment seekers out of their money.
It’s the usual scam. An ad is placed in craigslist for an apartment that is much lower than the rent in neighboring buildings but you have to take it sight unseen and send a deposit. But the ’seller’ doesn’t actually own the apartment or it doesn’t exist at all.
It still boggles my mind that people keep falling for these scams.
The article leaves us with the prerequisite quote for these situations.
Sphere: Related Content“People need to remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
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February 18, 2008 at 9:47 pm
The Quirked Eyebrow
There’s no way in heck I could take on the American ads but if you go to chicaneryconsscams.blogspot.com, you can see what I’m doing with the Canadian ones.
February 19, 2008 at 11:18 am
Trench
Just added it to my links.
March 16, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Clotario
It just got a lot easier to believe people will fall for these scams….
I’ve been in a back-and-forth with this JoAnn Rinnaggio (who is using the e-mail rinny_10023 at yahoo) though after the first e-mail it was clear that is was a con-job (below market rent, the painful english, the basing the relationship on trust, the sight unseen, etc). I dutifully put up posting warning others not to get involved with them - the first four words of my post being “This is a scam” - and THREE PEOPLE RESPONDED WANTING TO SEE THE APARTMENT.
There are a lot of very stupid people out there. If not ’stupid’, at least so thoughtless and careless as to be essentially offering themselves up for sacrifice.
April 1, 2008 at 11:28 am
Anonymous
Add steverinaggio@yahoo.com to that list of scammer emails, they are now hitting kijiji with ads for apartments as well. WATCH OUT PEOPLE!
April 3, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Professor S.
I’m a professor in Calgary and had a student who was contacted about a suite in Victoria, British Columbia! I’m tracking this guy and notice from his IP address from the e-mail he’s in Nigeria. It is amazing from NYC to small Victoria, BC… what a scammer!