de fraud

Dude. People will rip you off in any way they can.

I am a major fan of Chris Hanson's "To Catch..." series. First, because he has that high, nasally odd voice and the perfectly pouffed hair, but really, because he is always on the prowl for the bad guys. And when he exposes them, the shock and confusion that comes across the faces of those he strings up on hidden camera, is priceless. Pedophiles and con-artists and people who hide and strike from the fibers of broadband, get the helicopter spotlight on what they're doing.

None of them can ever answer why. No one even tries to defend what is unequivocally disgusting behavior. And yet they persist. There are guys who have been caught twice on the show. If they can catch them twice on the same television show, you know these people are pulling these this shit off over and over and over in normal life. The most recent one I watched, had to do with internet scams and duping people out of thousands and thousands of dollars. I thought it all quite horrifying and incredulous, but didn't think I'd be approached by it twice in one week.

So here's the scam: You troll around on Craigslist, praying for a legitimate, normal space to come up. One that has a door and a working toilet and shower and maybe even screens on the windows, if you are lucky enough to have more than one. You even go so far as to wish for something that is both satisfactory AND in your price range and you tirelessly slog through ad after ad on your amazingly optimistic quest.

And then you find it.

There it is: $1600 for a one bedroom in the financial district. On Broadway even. There is something slightly to insanely unrealistic about that, so you inquire as to why it is such a bargain and why the person is vacating. Here is the response you will get:

"I had to move to London (or other city across the pond) for work and I own my apartment. My housing is going to be subsidized by my company, so I just want to cover maintenance fees and a little extra. I can only rent the apartment out for a few years at this point, and since I am already in London, have a solution for how to complete this transaction."

Then you will be sent a link to TNT.com. This is a legitimate website and a legitimate company, too. The "solution" is an escrow situation. He will send the keys to TNT to hold, until they receive a wire payment from you, which they will also hold. Once the wire payment is received, the keys are released and shipped to you. The apartment is checked out and subsequently accepted or rejected by you and once that has happened, either the wire or the keys are sent through to the lessor and the transaction is completed. Now, here is why this is odd.

In pretty much any building in New York, there will be a super, or person who maintains the space; especially if it's a building like the one that was being advertised. Any person with a space to let, owned or not owned, will be able to have someone at the building access the apartment and manage the renting process. The super in any situation is a big part of one's life and there is simply no getting around it. There needn't be any kind of "escrow" in order to check out an apartment.

Add to that, while I was on the TNT.com website, I actually found a link to the fraud section they set up to warn people of that very transaction. I became so disgusted that I just had to laugh. My decision at that point was to do something utterly ineffective. I let the thcammer know that I was onto his tricks. I copied and pasted a clip of the fraud warning on the web page and then I simply wrote this:

If you are trying to defraud innocent people out of their hard earned money with bullshit like this, you are a bad person.

I got no response. Huh.