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There's an apartment that's fully furnished, in a great location, and a few hundred under what I was expecting to pay in rent. In short, it's perfect. Obviously anything that's too good to be true, is. But I inquired since it couldn't hurt.

I woke up to this email and I'm 99.999999% sure it's a scam, but I'm also new to renting, so I don't know if I'm just being overly cautious and really screwing myself out of a deal.

"

Hello,

First of all, I think that you noticed the monthly rent price, which is below the market. The reason for this, is because I already left US, I am now in United Kingdom and I cannot show you the apartment in person.

The reason I haven't managed to rent the apartment before leaving  for United Kingdom is that someone said will rent the apartment and haven't managed to keep the promise.  I waited for him, but unfortunately he was unable to get the money in time, so the transaction failed and I had to leave before I could rent it. Obviously, this experience has brought me huge inconveniences  and left me with a bitter taste so I prefer to use a worldwide property management company.

Please note that all the keys are with me in United Kingdom, because we are overseas,  and because of this bitter experience we previously had, I  will rent the apartment ONLY  by using an International Third Party company called Wimdu (wimdu. com).  Their website is main focused on short term rentals, but they also have an NEW service for long term rentals. I used this service last month when I rented my apartment in London, United Kingdom, and I can tell you that it was a great experience. Look at their website as reference, but please know that you will not find my apartment there, as I need to initiate the transaction before anything. 

Wimdu is a very serious company,  a global company with millions of customers (both landlords and renters), their revenue is over 100 million dollars/year.  Their services are similar to the well known Airbnb, reason why they were named the best alternative for Airbnb. In my opinion they offer better services than Airbnb.

Using Wimdu  involves three parties: me as owner, you as a potential tenant and Wimdu as a responsible third party authorized to handle this transaction. Wimdu will handle everythingWimdu works the same way as the escrow account on which you place the deposit when you rent an apartment, except that instead of a bank, we use Wimdu. Of course, nobody can take that money until you will inspect the apartment and sign the lease agreement.

I understand that this is not a conventional way to rent a place, but please keep in mind that the "reward" for following with the Wimdu transaction is a lower monthly rent. Also I will pay for all the fees that Wimdu will request for using their services. Please note that the Wimdu services are necessary only until you will inspect the apartment and sign the lease agreement, after that you can deposit the monthly payments directly to my bank account, or we can setup a payment method that is suitable for both of us.

My phone number is (taking this out for the post), please keep in mind that there is a big time difference between us, if I am not able to respond, I will do my best to call you back asap.

LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE STILL INTERESTED IN THE PROCESS, so I can provide all the detailed steps of the transaction (I am sure that many of the questions you have now, will be answered after I will send you the steps). If you choose to continue, I will do my best to be as transparent as possible during the whole transaction."

Is this normal? I'm very curious but also insanely wary.



September 30, 2019 at 08:37PM

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