In the continued saga that is my search for a home/living place/bed for the next seven months, there have been a lot of ups and downs and ridiculous encounters with various people who either want way too much money or who are trying to get rid of super crappy apartments. This is boring. I am not going to tell all those little stories because they are terrible and will make you never want to move to France, and above all they make me very very angry.
However, today was a first. While I searched frantically for accommodation in Martigues and also in neighboring Marseille, I was the intended victim of a fairly classic scam, and quite frankly it added a bit of spice to the supremely boring and frustrating task that is finding an apartment for such a short period of time. Thus I will share it with you.
In desperation, I admittedly turned to a fairly unlikely source for real estate postings in the south of France: Craigslist. In New York, this is a fairly established way of looking for an apartment, but in other cities and other parts of the world, not so much. Sure, New York has its scammers like everywhere else, but I’d venture to say that the majority of people who post “For Rent” ads on Craigslist are genuinely looking for someone to rent their apartment. Fine. Ok. Sure.
My first indication that this wasn’t going to amount to anything was the fact that there were all of six postings for the entire month of September. They were all vague. This mattered very little to my desperate sensibilities, so I replied to an announcement for a “2 bedroom 2 bathroom ** VERY PEACEFUL**BRIGHT**GREAT LOCATION!”
So you see how this could have maybe been a legitimate announcement? No inappropriate vocabulary, generally straightforward. My tendency to give them the benefit of the doubt was very much colored, again, by my immense desire to find a goshdarn apartment.
Within hours, I get a response.
Thanks for your email and it is my gladness to hear from you.I am Rev.Mathew moor,the owner of the Apartment you are making inquiry of.Actually I resided in the Apartment with my family,such as my wife and my only daughter before, and presently we had packed due to my transfer from my working place and now situated in west Africa Nigeria and presently my apartment is still available for rent,the rent including the utilities like hydro,washer and security,it is furnished.More so Now, i went for a Crusade in Nigeria with my wife and only Daugherty like i told you and i will like you to get in touch with my wife asap for more discussion as She is with the keys and the document to the Apartment.Pls i want you to note that,i am a kind and honest man and also i spent a lot on my property that i want to give you for rent,so i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this apartment and want you to treat it as your own,is that taken,it is not the money the main problem is i want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i came for a check up.i do that once in a while.I also want you to let me have trust in you as i always stand on my words.Email my wife Linda, (mathewlinda5@gmail.com) and she will attends to you better.
Thanks and God bless you
Right. So. Alarm bells. Obviously.
I could point out every signature scam move in this email but obviously you are smart people, and this is just ridiculous.
But you know what? Lots of nice people go to Nigeria. And I still don’t have a place to live. I email the wife. In French this time, because you know I figure if we’re going to do the inevitable mountains necessary paperwork, this lady better parlez vous some français.
Of course her response was in English, probably automatically generated for all the suckers (read: just me) who bothered to send messages to this email address. I won’t enclose the response she gave, because it was pretty much the same sort of thing that her “husband” had said, except this time with the new information that she was also not in town, but in America with her daughter. The name she gives in the email isn’t the same that her husband gave, and she attached pictures of a house that is obviously WAYYY too nice to be renting for 550 euros/month, probably jacked from a real estate website or some nonsense.
Anyway, she trips up. In her email, she gives the address as somewhere in PARIS, not Marseille. Insulting me even further, the postal code she puts next to the address is NOT a Parisian one, but instead belongs to SAINT-DENIS, which, if you are unfamiliar, is a not-very-well-off suburb that is infamous for its high crime rate (almost twice the average in France).
My point here is that as improbable as this apartment is, the likelihood of it being found in St-Denis is even lower.
BUT NONE OF THIS MATTERS BECAUSE I WANTED AN APARTMENT IN MARSEILLE, NOT PARIS.
I bring this fact to her attention, that I wanted an apartment in Marseille, so obviously there was a misunderstanding, thanks anyway.
Stop judging me, I felt bad!
I get the following response:
yes the apartment is Marseille here is were are living befor
Yes, well, lady, if you don’t even know where your most cherished of family homes is, we have a problem. I may continue to mess with these dopes over the next few days, if only because it certainly brightens up the dismal state of emailing every real estate agency in the south of France. Also because they have the important distinction of being my very first would-be scammers. I’m frankly touched.
So, I sally forth, and hopefully before my contract is up in April, I will indeed possess lodgings.
To be continued.
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