Scammed . . . almost

Typically January is filled with planning our spring/summer vacations. Earlier this year Nate commented how he'd like to go to Mount Rushmore. And Tyler commented on what a long, boring drive that is. I checked with Google maps and from here to there it's about 10 1/2 hours. And from here to San Diego it's about . . 10 1/2 hours. And from here to San Francisco it's about . . . . . . . 10 1/2 hours.

Wow! We are so centrally located and can really road trip anywhere. Several years ago Tyler and I enjoyed a few days in San Fran and loved it, especially Muir Woods and the redwood trees. I've always wanted to share that with my kids.

Spring break does not coincide with Easter this year, so we are going to head west.

I got to work making sure it was all going to work out financially and deciding how to be the best steward of our money because vacations can be such a black hole.

Well, with seven of us it's a little tricky to find good, cheap places to stay. In the past we've relied on reward points from all of Tyler's travel. Unfortunately those have been maxed out and we are on our own for the first time in quite a few years. Tyler got a tip from a hotel about using craigslist to find vacation home rentals. Since we did that last year when we went to Manti, I thought it was a fabulous suggestion. This was a way we could save on dining and meals.

I scoured and scoured and found a few that would work as far as location, price, accommodations. Then one day I came across the mother lode. A three bedroom home with parking, right across from the Presidio (a huge park) and within a few miles of everywhere we wanted to go. For $150 a night, it seemed like a steal for the San Francisco area (RED FLAG #1).

I emailed them with a few questions like was it available for a short term rental, was there a cleaning fee, and how close was public transportation.

I waited several days with no response (RED FLAG #2), so I emailed again and finally got a response back, albeit in fairly poor English (RED FLAG #3), from a Rich Ryan at 2:30 in the morning (RED FLAG #4). The weird thing is that there was no reference to the listing number (RED FLAG #5) so I wasn't entirely sure which house we were discussing since I had emailed one other listing also. I inquired again and his second email was more timely and he sent me the rental agreement although he never really addressed the questions I had brought up (RED FLAG #6).

Together, Tyler and I looked it over. We have never done something like this other than Manti which seemed pretty safe and were wondering how much we could trust this person we were dealing with. At a cursory glance the rental agreement looked good, but later that night as I really poured over it, I had some misgivings:

1. The document looked like a cut and paste job. It didn't flow and it wasn't all that professional (RED FLAG #7).

2. Why was the phone number in Klamath Falls, Oregon (RED FLAG #7). Sure I realize cell phones can originate anywhere but that's what came up on our called ID when they tried calling several times (we didn't answer; thought it was a telemarketer) and I thought it was a little strange.

3. There was no cleaning deposit. At first I thought BONUS! But after looking at quite a few I realized it's pretty standard to have a cleaning deposit (RED FLAG #8).

4. He wanted the money wired to a bank account that looked legitimate but made us nervous. We would prefer to pay by credit card (RED FLAG #9).

5. The owner's name was different than the person we would be depositing our money with (RED FLAG #10).

6. Should we decide to back out, we had until 3 days before our arrival to cancel our reservation and would be out $100. Most other listings had a 30 day cancellation policy which made a lot more sense since they aren't a hotel and it's harder to find last-minute renters and you're out all your money (RED FLAG #11).

We decided to do a little research. Tyler called several California agencies to find out more about vacation rentals and these people in particular. No one offered any real help. Up to this point I'm still feeling okay about it. A Facebook search brought up a profile that left me feeling uneasy. We were looking at a 30-something Filipino lady (RED FLAG #12) and I was wondering where she had the money to own such a nice home not to mention she just looked downright scary.

Tyler looked the address up on Zillow, a market analysis site, to discover that that particular home had been sold in December 2013 for almost $4 million, only two months previous (RED FLAG #13). Now I'm sure 30-something Filipino lady did not have that kind of money and if she did why is she only renting it for $150/night.

I looked it up on Zillow myself and was surprised to see that the pictures were the exact same as on craigslist and even the paragraph describing the home was exactly the same (RED FLAG #14). They had simply lifted all the info from some real estate site. And when I went back to the craigslist listing, I noticed the MLS watermark in the corner of all the photos (RED FLAG #15). Whomever these people were had not taken their own photos.

The square footage of the home on the craigslist listing was actually the size of the lot. According to Zillow the home was much larger (RED FLAG #16).

Lastly, I looked up the address at the top of the rental agreement. According to Google maps, it's in a run down part of Oakland and looks like an apartment building. Now why would they be living here and renting a beautiful home they just bought (RED FLAG #17).

Apparently craigslist vacation rentals are a big scam and we just about fell into one. As much as I really hoped this would work out, I'm so glad we took an evening and did a little homework. That just saved us $750 and a lot of heartache and grief.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.