Hello all, I unfortunately fell victim to a housing scam here in the United states. This guy pretended to be a real estate agent and allowed us access to a house we were looking to rent. He had real listings on Zillow, Realtors.com, and Craigslist so I figured it was legit. He then sent over a background check and lease agreement. After that he took the first month down and a deposit via PayPal and never heard from him again. His phone number shows that he is in the US, but when I spoofed his email and got his IP adress I traced it to Nigeria. Which makes sense due to him having an African accent. Not sure if this is anybody’s Jam but I have his “contact info” and ip address that I’m assuming is real.
So you met this person in-person?
I've never seen a housing/rent scam be this complex, especially in-person...
Hopefully you can work with PayPal to get your money back??
And does his phone number still work?
PayPal will not return the money because we “authorized the payment” even though it was a fraudulent on the other side. Plus I’m sure the account he used was a burner so they couldn’t recover the money anyways. I’ve already reported it to the local police and the FBI. And yes the number still works (he doesn’t know we have caught on yet). I also have his email and IP adress in Nigeria. We never met in person and I know that’s usually a big red flag, but I have had a land lord before who wasn’t in state and never had any problems. I was still weary but he knew a lot about my local area and the house that was for lease. He also had multiple other listings all over my local area and lot’s of details on them too. He had what I assumed is a stolen identity of a real estate agent, fake realators license, fake bank accounts, fake home adress, knew about the local schools and area in general, a proxy on his phone that made it look like he was in the US (even though he clearly isn’t), and was very very normal to talk to on the phone until after he got our money. He then tried to extort more money buy saying his son died of cancer this week and we need to pay him more money. Obviously I’m not going to. But he has stolen money from like 10 families that I know of. I could really use some help trying to find out who this guy is so I can have it handled through proper channels. He took $2000 from my Wife and I and way more than that from other families in my area.