Victim Location 02115
Total money lost $2,000
Type of a scam Rental
I came across a listing on Apartments.com for a lovely studio in the South End of Boston. The rent was only $1000/month and it looked beautiful, so I inquired on their website with my email attached. A day later I received an email from the "owner" with additional pictures of the space and further details. After several emails back and forth, I decided that I was going to go for it because the deal was so good. He said that he was away for work and paid off the mortgage on the apartment, which is why he is renting it out to people. Because he is overseas, he said we had to go through the company FlipKey by Trip Advisor, where I would send them money and they would ship out the keys and lease agreement. He also sent me a photocopy of "his passport" and his receipt from when he went to FlipKey. Being the naïve person I am, I immediately paid the $2000 through WesternUnion to the people they told me to and was promised to receive my keys in 2-3 business days. After not receiving, they said that in order for them to ship out my package I would have to pay ANOTHER $1000. After multiple days of not receiving my keys, I unfortunately realized that I was being scammed. The owner and FlipKey company no longer emailed me back and has not since. I found the same exact email that I received from the owner online from another person who also was scammed. This person is using apartments.com and FlipKey to scam people.