Victim Location 95112
Type of a scam Rental
I was searching for apartments in San Jose,CA. I found an ad on rentals.com and requested more information. I received an email from "Jill" stating the the apartment was still available and that "if are you really interesting replay me including some information about you as a renter."
I was naive and didn’t realize that this could be a scam so I replied with some basic information about myself and received this as a reply.
" Hi,
Thanks for your reply. We own the place and our daughter lived there until 2 month ago when she got married and she moved to WA.
That`s why we decided to rent it.
Unfortunately, because of my job, it will be a bit difficult to meet you personally now for the moment we are in NY now and I am unable to travel right now.
Last week I came there to meet a couple who was interested, but they never showed up, and I think you can imagine that it’s not very comfortable to fly back and forth from NY, especially when work commitments are made. Because of that we decide to make everything through Airbnb, an international company that mainly deals with rentals.
They will organize the inspection and will also assist you in managing the payment.
First of all, I`ll have to make the booking registration for you with Airbnb, and they send you the booking confirmation containing all the rental information including the payment instructions to secure the booking.
You`ll have to make a down payment of 1 month of rent to Airbnb and after they will receive it, an agent will be assigned for your reservation, which will contact you to schedule the perfect time when you can inspect the place. Can be even the same day when the down payment was made.
If you like the place, you`ll sign the lease, you`ll get the keys from the Airbnb agent and you can move in right away.
The down payment is a simple formality, after the inspection if you do not like the place and you do not want to rent it, Airbnb will return your down payment in full immediately.
If you would like to proceed, please give us your details (full name, current address and phone number) and we will make the registration for you with Airbnb.
Sincerely,
Allan & Jill E. Collins"
I didn’t provide more information about myself but instead asked more questions about the property. At this point I did more research and have noticed this is a common scam, word for word that scammers use.