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It was real until it wasn’t.
A San Francisco man is sending out a warning to renters after falling victim to a sophisticated rental scam that cost him $18,600 last month.
“I think I’m a pretty savvy person… and I fell for this scam,” 28-year-old Alvin Tran told ABC 7.
While searching for an apartment to share with a roommate, Tran stumbled across a dream apartment on Zillow.
The two-bedroom spread in San Francisco’s Dubcoe Triangle neighborhood was asking $6,200 a month and featured hardwood floors, large bay windows, and freshly painted white walls.
He sent an inquiry to the listing agent, but no one got back to him.
The next day, he spotted the same apartment while searching through Craigslist. The listing’s photos and description matched the Zillow listing, and Tran assumed the same person had posted both.
The product designer trusted Craigslist. After all, he had used the platform to rent apartments in the past, one of which he didn’t even visit in person before signing the lease.
Tran messaged the Craigslist ad about the apartment, and quickly began texting with a man named “James.”
Soon, Tran scheduled a tour of the apartment. It looked just like the photos.
The man who showed Tran the apartment called himself “Jim” and said his grandparents owned the building. Tran assumed James and Jim were the same person. About six other people were also at the apartment for a tour.
“Because there were so many people, I didn’t get much one-on-one time to talk to him,” Tran told The San Francisco Standard.
“Our conversation was mainly asking about the unit, the neighborhood, who the next-door neighbors are. I had already been emailing and texting someone who I thought was [the same] guy. There was no reason for me to confirm that, because I was already in communication.”
Tran made a move on the apartment quickly, offering to shell out $6,7000 a month, $500 over asking.
He was soon informed that he got the apartment and was sent a lease agreement with landlords listed as James Basuino Dunlap and Leyder Junco Barranco.
The email requested Tran make two wire transfer payments, $12,400 for the first and last month’s rent and $6,200 for a deposit. He paid up.
“ I was really banking on the fact that I had seen the place in person,” Tran said. “I had talked to a guy with the same name, and I could not think of any other way that it could be a scam.”
His roommate Zelle-d him their half of the $18,600, and Tran transferred the cash to the purported landlords. But when Tran showed up on move-in day on July 30, no one was there.
“ And that was when all communication ceased,” Tran said.
After several failed attempts to reach out to James, Tran realized something was wrong. It was then that he reached out to the poster of the original Zillow listing — the real James Basuino, asking him if he had posted the same listing on Craigslist. Basuino confirmed the worst. He’d been duped.
Tran says his bank, Bank of America, told him that whether he gets the money back depends on Bluevine Bank, the bank where he sent the cash.
The Seattle native says the money lost won’t ruin him financially, but he does feel guilty for roping his friend into the scam. “I was the main person in communication,” Tran said. “So I was dragging her into this.”
