Online apartment hunting can be hazardous to your wallet -- and your pride

Yesterday's Norwalk Citizen-News -- no, not OUR Norwalk, Connecticut's Norwalk -- warned online apartment hunters about the costly ride they'll take if they get duped by an unscrupulous Internet scammer.

In A Cautionary Tale, writer Lauren Garrison relates her experience dealing with a shady character who advertised an "available apartment" online.

Excerpted from the story:

I e-mailed Maria at the America Online address she provided in the posting, and she responded promptly. She referred me to a blog she had set up, where she had more information and photographs of the apartment. She replied to each of my e-mails in broken English, always polite, but never exactly answering the questions I posed.

At one point, I concluded that the $1,300 would be too large a burden and told Maria I would be unable to rent the apartment. She immediately lowered her offer to $1000.

I asked to tour the apartment.

Maria offered to mail me the key, as she was in San Francisco and wouldn't be back in Stamford for several months. Apparently realizing that this would be risky for her to do, she wrote again asking for a sort of safety deposit wired not to her but to a friend or relative of mine.

Clues here?

1. The broken English. By itself, not altogether alarming.
2. The immediate reduction in price. Hmmm, suspicious.

3. Oh wait, you mean she's not local? Danger, Will Robinson.

4. The scammer's tool of trade: a wired sum of money. Ding, Ding, Ding! If this isn't a scam, I'll eat my hat!

Of course, "Maria" did turn out to be a scammer, and she nearly got away with Garrison's $1,000.

The story, linked above, is a lengthy one but well worth your time if you use the Internet to look for apartments.

As always, the Easy Rent Editor advises both prospective tenants and property owners alike to only do business with locals, and to only accept payments via American-issued checks and money orders. Payments should be for the exact amount charged; do not let someone issue you a check for more than that amount if they require you to send them back the excess.

The Easy Rent Editor loves the Internet and its global reach, and I wholly advocate going online to do just about everything -- including apartment searches. Just be wise. The Interent is rife with fraudsters; learn how to identify them and you'll be OK.