The Craigslist Rental Scam Was Doable Because #Renting Is a Scam

[00:00:04] You're listening to Casual Talk Radio, where common sense is still the norm. Whether you're a new or long-time listener, we appreciate you joining us today. Visit us at CasualTalkRadio.net. And now, here's your host, Leistor.

[00:00:20] Those that have listened to me for a while know I've been hypercritical of the scam known as renting. But I've never talked about the opposite side of this. My name is Leistor. I am your host. Welcome or welcome back.

[00:00:34] It occurred to me, housing in general, I like talking about it. I'm not talking about my house yet. I will have an update because this fiasco with the plumbing, I think it's an enticing story for people to hear. But the renting, I want to get back to it.

[00:00:48] There was a story in the local newspaper and for those that are shaking their head wondering what I'm talking about, there was a time when people would get their newspaper delivered. I get my newspaper delivered. I don't go to news online.

[00:01:00] You might wonder why it's because I'm not necessarily interested in what's the latest breaking something. And I certainly am not interested in knowing what Travis Kelsey did with his girlfriend. I don't care about that, which is fed to you on the online sorts.

[00:01:18] They feed you whatever they feel like feeding you. I don't, I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in true news. So I do subscribe to the newspaper. And when I do, I find number one, you can relax.

[00:01:31] You can have your breakfast, your eggs, your bacon, you know, your orange juice, your coffee, your toast, real breakfast, you know, not grits, real breakfast. And you can sit and read the paper, relax.

[00:01:42] I find that a lot of people that instead they scramble, they're flipping on their phone and they don't get, they get fed whatever that company feels like feeding you. And they're not relaxing. They're scrambling. They're rushing, you know, got to be working o'clock in the morning.

[00:01:59] All this garbage that I swore off of years ago, I swore off this idea of stressing myself out, especially if I'm not paid for it. I'm talking paid sufficiently for it. I said, I'm going to reclaim my life, reclaim my morning, reclaim my day.

[00:02:17] And that's what I've done as a result. The net effect of this was money started to increase. You might wonder how because when I take back control, I dictate my rate. I dictate the work I'm going to do and I dictate how I'm going to do it.

[00:02:32] If they don't like it, I walk. I'm in the hunt for a second client, but for right now, the one that I have is amenable to what I do because I'm so good at what I do, which allowed me to take back control of my morning.

[00:02:45] Part of that taking back control is to relax and read the morning paper like the old days, enjoy my coffee. And I dial in when I feel like dialing it. I have control of my situation, not some other person. So that's why I have the paper.

[00:03:01] I don't have a mobile phone, at least not a smartphone. I have a regular phone. It actually got lost, believe it or not. And I'm, I have to get another SIM card. I have a tablet, but it's not for reading the news.

[00:03:12] That's really just for, you know, my smart devices and et cetera. So anyway, the newspaper, the beauty that is the newspaper. There was an article came up in the newspaper from this morning and it talked about a scam.

[00:03:27] The scam I want to dig in because I think it's a good opportunity not to say, neenah, neenah, neenah, neenah, neenah.

[00:03:33] It's not that it is to try to help people because I, when I read this, there's so many flags that I think perhaps I don't know how old this person is. Says that they graduated their college in 98. So I'm assuming they're pretty darn young is my guess.

[00:03:50] I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming they're young, but they may actually be older than me. I don't know, but 98 graduating college would strike me that they must be a fair bit younger than me.

[00:03:59] And so I'm sharing this because there may be people out there who are in this age range. So what happened is this person was in college at a point graduated college decided they wanted to move back to where they grew up.

[00:04:15] They had gone to college out of state. I understand they're in Tennessee. Tennessee got crazy expensive for no reason. Used to be the Tennessee was one of the cheapest places to live, to buy a home or anything else.

[00:04:27] And then all of a sudden it started skyrocketing presumably because people realized it's actually way cheaper to buy out there than it is out in the West. So she decides she wants to go back to her home, her stomping grounds.

[00:04:39] And so she was looking for a place to rent. Now I had a similar situation when I was trying to move to the place I currently am where I was trying to find a place to rent and it was a struggle. I couldn't find anybody.

[00:04:54] They weren't just willing to make a deal. Everybody's got these stupid requirements and restrictions and all this garbage didn't make any sense and I wouldn't go play by those rules. I finally found that place. There are a bunch of crap.

[00:05:04] They actually just changed the policy where they refused to take paper checks and I'm like, all right screw you dudes. I still have that place up through July 9th and I'm on. I got one more trip before that place is completely moved out of the stuff that's there.

[00:05:18] I could lose it. I'm not worried about it. But you know, I have to do a clean outs and all that kind of stuff. And then they're going to nail me for the paint.

[00:05:25] And I talked about the scam that is deposits where well, if you want to get your deposit back, you better clean this thing up and down.

[00:05:31] Then you clean it and then they still hold you deposit because it doesn't do any good because it's all the scams all extortion.

[00:05:36] Well, this girl she's shopping online on Craigslist in this case to try to find a place to rent because she's not having any success with regular renting things. I don't know the specifics of why, but she's struggling to find a renting place.

[00:05:49] Probably the same as mine goes to Craigslist finds some regular person that's posted a room which is normal in a home decent price month to month lease. She's like, okay, that works for me brother and reaches out to this person. Now here's red flag number one.

[00:06:07] If somebody offers a month to month lease. I've been in situations in 2003.

[00:06:15] I rented a from a, I would say upper middle class family and I don't know if I told the story but at that time I was I was trying to get out of my I was trying to get out of my situation.

[00:06:27] So I took the first thing I could get 500 bucks a month. They had a room apparently they had like three other people that were renting rooms. One of them was a foreign exchange student. And another was a guy who I theorized was sleeping with the wife.

[00:06:41] I couldn't prove it, but they were spending an awful lot of freaking time together when the husband wasn't there. So I did what I had to do. I stayed there as a month monthly since the whole nine.

[00:06:49] I wouldn't call the nightmare, but it certainly wasn't fun anyway this girl. When you find this month to month situation, you need to understand the contract now I went there physically I went to see it. I went to talk to them.

[00:07:04] I went to understand what the deal was. I didn't commit anything. I didn't send any money until I was face to face with these people. She's doing this whole thing over her cell phone.

[00:07:13] So that's flag number one is you're dealing with something that's abnormal as in an individual that's willing to rent to you.

[00:07:19] And apparently one of the appeals was that it was off the books and that's a flag because when the rental market, you have no rights as it is even when there is a contract. You have no rights.

[00:07:28] So now if you're dealing with somebody, it's an individual homeowner or family. You definitely have no rights without a contract. Even with a contract, there's still certain things you have no rights to by law depends on the state. So she's transacting all this over the phone.

[00:07:43] So that's flag number one and I'm like, oh, geez. And apparently they settle on deposit. It's like 600 bucks. Okay. She sends the $600. She sends it via cell flag number two for you young people out there.

[00:07:57] I keep ranting about the Zells and the Ben Venmo's and the PayPal's and I keep telling you stop relying on these freaking services for business. You're going to set yourself up for failure.

[00:08:10] If you need to conduct business, you need to learn how to write a check or from your bank do a straight ACH. But I would rather you just write a check or get a money order because that creates a paper trail for you and you have some protections.

[00:08:23] She does the Venmo. We'll come back to it. Now it's getting close to the whole situation.

[00:08:29] The person who allegedly has this thing for rent reaches out and says, I'd be nice if you could pay the first month's rent before you move in because I want to make the books balance. There's two flags with this.

[00:08:41] First of all, if you are so financially insolvent that you have to have the first month's rent early, that creates a risk that you even if it is legit, you might get kicked out because if that person is behind on their mortgage. That means you can get evicted.

[00:08:57] It's not, you know, it's what it is. So hearing that they're financially insolvent to the point that they have to have the money sooner should have been a risk where you walk away. I don't care how desperate you are.

[00:09:08] Don't do that if you hear that they're financially insolvent. But number two, the urgency. No scammers. They trigger your FOMO. They trigger you to just act. They want you to act. That's how all scams, that's how the Nigerian scams work and the romance scams work.

[00:09:26] There's a artificial urgency created and you should not react when you hear these things. And yet she did. Okay. Now this girl doesn't have a lot of money. So she's already sent $600 for the deposit.

[00:09:39] Now she's sending however much for the rent payment and again sends it through Zell turns out she's trying to get this thing finalized turns out. Not only is there not a place to act a rent that's actually available. This person doesn't really exist.

[00:09:56] They fabricated so they had sent a copy of the photo ID to this girl in good faith again, you're not physically there. So you can't prove it's the same person. She trusted this information she was given but turns out it was all fake.

[00:10:11] This was not a real person. The card was a actual person, but that was not the person that she was corresponding with.

[00:10:18] That was a totally different person who is defrauding her took her money and ran this girl is now essentially living out of her car and doesn't know what to do all because she reacted in desperation. And because of the whole renting situation being a scam it to boot.

[00:10:37] She did everything wrong. This is not to shame her. It's to help educate other people. I said it before if you're going to do these things, do it in person. Absolutely.

[00:10:47] If you're going to transact money, please stop fricking using Venmo and Zell and all that garbage because you have no protections.

[00:10:55] Venmo and Zell specifically Zell in this case have it in their terms and say as long as we did all of our checks and balances, you're not getting your money back. Turns out she did this transaction through Zell via Wells Fargo.

[00:11:11] I can't wrap my head around how stupid that is. Wells Fargo offers a CH Wells Fargo offers wire Wells Fargo will do a check for you.

[00:11:21] She had multiple ways that are protected because you got to understand the Venmo's and Zell's and all those they don't benefit from the FDIC protections. They don't benefit from the fraud protections.

[00:11:33] They tell you they'll protect it, but that's only if certain of the checks and balances don't pass in this case you're sending to a person that you said I want to send to that's not fraud. Because you said you want it.

[00:11:46] You're the one that has to initiate it's not like they stole it from you. The fact that the person who you chose to send it to is not the person you intended it to be. That's not Venmo's problem. That's not Zell's problem.

[00:11:58] That's not PayPal's problem and they're going to say but you're the one to click the button at the end of the day. That's accountability. You got to own that because you chose to send to this person without vetting them.

[00:12:09] Apparently the recipient is a valid account, but it doesn't really matter because they had sent the money off to cryptocurrency. They bought a bunch of crypto and then there's a way that you can wash quote those funds to where they're no longer traceable. That's not her fault.

[00:12:25] What is her fault is relying on all these Venmo's and Zell's instead of what protected her against fraud. Wells Fargo had tons of traditional means that would have worked. Why are you sending it through these immediate transaction things knowing it's a huge risk desperation? She's desperate.

[00:12:44] She has to get a place. I understand you can't react to the desperation. It's just going to set you up for failure. So she now is in a very tough situation because she doesn't have any money now. She's got to wait and she's living out of her car.

[00:12:59] Apparently she's been out of her car for a month now. Living out of her car. That means she doesn't make a lot of money as it is per month.

[00:13:06] The second bad part of this, it's going to be even harder for her to get legit renting going because even the legit companies are making it harder to rent. They want everything flawless perfect if you don't have enough money to suit them.

[00:13:23] Your credit's not in a perfect situation. Got to have three references to do to do. You got to have this over here. This over there.

[00:13:29] You have to be extra careful with what you're doing at all times because even when you do get to the legit ones, they're going to run you through the ringer and make it hard for you to sustain because our system.

[00:13:42] The United States doesn't care if you're homeless or not. They don't care. There are services like 211 that are designed to provide some assistance when you're having these tough times. There's a wait list because there's a lot of people there and it's underfunded to be quite honest.

[00:13:58] All I'm saying. Renting in general is a scam and on top of that you have these people who are willing to scam you and you have to be extra careful when you run into these situations. I know it's not easy. I'm not presenting that it is.

[00:14:12] I'm presenting that it's necessary for people to really think through when you're about to go into these kinds of, you know, hey, send me money now or I need the money immediately. Think it through. Why do they need so fast?

[00:14:25] Because even if it is legit, they're probably insolvent and they're insolvent. You might get kicked out of your home. I don't want to see that happen to anybody. But renting is a scam overall. So even if you were dealing with a legit company, the same thing can happen.

[00:14:38] They could go insolvent. Something could happen and they hold you deposit. You never get it back, which is why I ultimately had to resolve. I got to buy something I didn't want to buying was not what I wanted to do, but I knew that renting was a scam.

[00:14:51] Renting itself was a scam and I knew it. I had to get away from the cycle of renting. Buying was not my first choice because they never know what happens. You know, we could have another pandemic. They're trying to force the bird flu pandemic now.

[00:15:04] Who knows what happens here and the place that I bought. I'm learning very quickly that a lot of the regular routine retail operations are not up to snuff. And that's going to be a problem.

[00:15:15] And I got to figure out what to do about it, which may mean I'm not here for the long term. That's disruptive.

[00:15:22] I still have a measure of control because I have enough money that I'm not going to be homeless anytime in the near future, at least not in the next year.

[00:15:29] So I'm not in that situation, but I can only imagine if somebody were in that situation what that would mean and how hard it is. I was at a point where I almost was living out of the car. So I'm, I am resonating with the situation.

[00:15:42] I'm trying to make sure that people listen who do listen to show are hearing the message that I keep saying. Stop relying on these other services for business transactions. Stick to the old. I know that you're told that it's the past. It's not the past.

[00:16:00] It is the present. It's going to be the foreseeable future. If you get to the point where you buy something, you're going to end up writing a check at least one. If not a CH if not wire, you're not going to do Venmos.

[00:16:12] You're not going to pay pals. You're not going to do Zells. Learn to accept and embrace regular fiat currency and learn to use smart payment methods to protect yourself and keep yourself safe in the long run.

[00:16:25] We also, as a close, we're coming up very close to the debate, the long patiently waiting debate between Donald Trump, former president and Joe Biden current president on the debate stage with all sorts of rules.

[00:16:40] Apparently Joe Biden is sequestered for seven days preparing who knows what they're injecting into him to get to keep him awake. But they've done all sorts of rules to essentially stack the deck against Donald Trump.

[00:16:51] You know, your mic gets cut off when it's not your turn and allegedly they're giving all the questions in advance to Joe Biden so you can prepare and somebody's prepping him and all this stuff to give him a tactical advantage. We know what it is.

[00:17:03] I think if you get a chance, you should watch the debate because no matter which way you chose to vote. Bottom line is it's going to be entertaining to boot. I think having Joe Biden remain in office is going to make stuff harder for everybody. I believe that.

[00:17:23] I believe having Donald Trump in office makes things harder only for those people who don't like the man, but from a money perspective, I think it eases a lot of the burden that you currently have. This is what I feel. Time will tell whether I'm right or wrong.

[00:17:39] And I am encouraging you to watch that debate intensely and see what's really the deal because who knows what's going to happen after that debate. One of them is going to lose strong support overall. One of them and I do think there's people out there who don't care.

[00:17:54] They're going to vote how they vote no matter what, but I do think that one of them is going to lose some strong support and it's going to slant the election. RFK is not a factor. He's not.

[00:18:04] We're getting close to then a total shift in how we're as a country, how we're going to move forward. We're in a tough situation.

[00:18:15] This girl's situation is a perfect example of what I mean when I say we're not recovered and we're not in a good economy and the recent drop. We have a significant drop across the board of various investments.

[00:18:27] And perhaps people anticipating what's going to happen with that debate is contributing to some of that. I'm only optimistic at this point. I can only be optimistic and the optimism is simply about the economy. It is the one thing I care about.

[00:18:43] It is the money in people's pockets is what I care about. I care about other things, but not as much as the economy because at the end of the day everybody's feeling it. Whether you're rich or poor, you're feeling it.

[00:18:57] And I want to see a little bit more aggression in how we solve these things than what we've seen so far from the Biden administration. That said, situations like this that I'm reading about the rent is a state level issue.

[00:19:12] The states are not motivated to do anything about it because the feds are not pushing them to do anything about it because the feds are focused in the wrong direction. And I'm optimistic that when a shift in leadership that changes to the positive, I may get that wrong.

[00:19:28] But that's all I can do as bank on that because I don't want to see stories like this continue to happen though. I know that they probably will.