People use Craigslist all the time but when you consider the number of scams that occur on this website, you start to wonder if anything on it is actually legitimate. It doesn't matter how careful you are or what city you live in, there are so many scams going on on Craigslist and other sites like it that it's almost impossible to weed through them all. In addition, some of them are quite elaborate. Of course, there's the same old standard scams that seem to be going on all over the country and people are still losing money to them. For some reason, Fort Myers, Florida seems to be having more than its fair share of problems with many of these scams, namely the ones related to buying or renting a home. Keep reading to find out more information about five of the most recent scams in the area.
1. The Same Old Rental Scam
This game has been going on for so long and has affected so many places that it's almost hard to believe people are still falling for it. Nevertheless, the family in the Fort Myers area was recently conned out of a rather large sum of money when they answered a Craigslist ad for a rental property. You probably know the rest of the story from here. The property wasn't for rent and the person that placed the ad had nothing to do with owning it. Nevertheless, he got them to forward the money for the first month's deposit and then some, and they probably won't ever get that money back.
2. Still More Property Scams
This one never seems to die down, either. A local man got in trouble for posting an ad on Craigslist saying that the property was for sale. Again, you probably know the rest of the story. The issue here is that he didn't own the property in the first place so he obviously couldn't sell it. That being said, it sure didn't stop him from soliciting as much money as he could from various people and having it deposited into his Paypal account
3. The Property Scams Never Seem to Stop
This is another property scam, but at least it features a bit of a twist. As a matter of fact, it involves an entire so-called company that's involved in the real estate business trying to sell and rent property across the Fort Myers, Florida area. However, the company doesn't really exist. It's all just a front for people to get as much money as possible and then disappear overnight before anybody can catch them.
4. The Vacation Condo That Wasn’t
Property scams really do seem to be the order of the day in Fort Myers. In this particular case, a woman was looking for a vacation property that she and her family could use for the weekend. It was something of a last minute trip so she didn't properly investigate the Craigslist ad for a condo that could be used over the same weekend. Instead, she just wired $600 to the account listed on the ad, only to discover that the condo was owned by someone else and was never available for rent in the first place. At least this story has a happy ending. As it turns out, the owner of the condo had some compassion for her situation and graciously allowed her and her family to stay there for the weekend free of charge.
5. A Property Scam with a Sick Twist
This is one of the worst types of scams you're ever likely to find. It's one that preys on people that have already been through some type of tragedy. In this case, a family whose home was completely destroyed in a hurricane thought they had found new housing through an ad on Craigslist, only to find that they had been scammed out of more than $2,000. They were then left with virtually no money and no place to stay, as that was money that have been given to them by FEMA in order to find new housing. Talk about people that really don't have any compassion for others, this takes the idea of scamming people to a whole new, utterly disgusting level.
