meauxna

Forward it to whomever is keeping The List of things Americans can't do right.

Mummy in the foothills

Be careful renting a house off craigslist, there have been people renting out houses they don't own, ones that may or may not be occupied, you get some clues when they are renting and not in the country and want money sent to such and such bank but you can't get in to view and they'll send the keys etc etc, sort of like the african princess scam. But the houses are real and the rent is usually pretty low so they get a lot of interest.

Hellopaul

Yeah, I once wanted to rent somewhere in London for a couple of months and saw a suitable flat on craigslist. I emailed the "owner" who gave me a plausible story about working away from London for a few months. I was fairly suspicious, but thought "how can anyone do a scam rental?"...but then the mention of Western Union appeared and I realised I'd wasted a couple of precious days emailing some f*&$^%& s*&^$£@% w@&*^$. Mmmm....yeah, I'd just go and wire him a couple of grand without even seeing the place. Yeah. Right.

I eventually found another flat on craigslist - the owner was genuinely going away for a few months and I genuinely rented the flat from them.

I once strung along a scammer (the old Nigerian 419 scam) for a few weeks. It got hilarious towards the end - I had arranged to meet this guy at the airport, and I would have black bin liners full of cash (for "tax-free investment" with him) and requested that he comes armed for "my protection"! I think he got rather excited at this prospect. There are several websites all about scambaiting, such as http://www.419eater.com/html/hall_of_shame.htm . Very funny!

But yes, craigslist is a fantastic place to look - just a shame it hasn't got any decent search facility.