According to reports, a 27-year-old Eureka woman attempted to rent a house on Randall Street in St. Louis that had been advertised as available on Craigslist but was duped out of $800 in the process. According to Eureka Police, the property’s real estate agent informed authorities that the individual the woman had spoken to about renting the house was not the owner.
The woman reported the scam on August 16 after the man who purported to be the property’s owner stopped replying to her texts, according to the newspaper.
After seeing the listing, the alleged victim informed police she got in touch with the man on August 10. She claimed the man informed her that before giving her the keys to the residence, he required her to wire him $800 using the mobile payment platform Cash App. The monthly rent was $1,500, he claimed. After moving in, the woman was scheduled to pay the remaining $700, according to the complaint.
She admitted to the police that over the course of two days, she sent the man four payments totaling $100, $300, and $200. According to the report, the inquiry revealed that the man had opened the account to which she transferred the funds under a false identity.
On August 13, the woman claims the man called and demanded the whole $1,500 before handing over the keys. According to her, she told him she was unable to pay the additional funds at that time and claimed that paying the entire $1,500 was not what they had agreed to. As a result, the man reportedly promised to return the $800 she had sent, according to Eureka Police.
The woman said, however, that the man stopped returning her text messages and never sent her money back.
After she reported the event, an officer with Eureka Police located the rental home on the Zillow real estate website and got in touch with the listing agent. The agent claimed that she had previously been alerted of a similar scam involving the Randall Street listing and that the man the woman had been in contact with was not the owner, according to the report.
A 60-year-old man from Lynn, Oregon, was the owner of the phone number the woman had used to get in touch with the man. According to Eureka Police, attempts to reach the individual at that number were unsuccessful.
