Flat hunting with scammers

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Q. How much fun can you have flat hunting?

A. It depends on how many people try to scam you, how bad they are at it and how long you’re willing to string them along.

Let me introduce you to Emilly aka Sylvia aka Emma aka….

I picked this lovely lady up on a popular flat-hunting website where she was advertising a single-bedroom flat in Mayfair for £500 per month, all bills included. She may as well have been offering me a villa on the Queen’s lawn with a stables in which to house my unicorns. Mayfair still won’t be that cheap when the Thames overflows and it’s six feet under water. In fact, the landlord will probably charge you extra for your scuba gear.

It was clearly a scam, but I was interested in how it panned out. After all, I understood how the Nigerian princes and beautiful women with kind hearts looking for life partners made money. How the hell does a flat scam run? A little something like this:

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