"Too Good to be True"

     I know I should be avoiding clichés, but I deem this instance a necessity.  I was halfheartedly looking at local rentals (on a popular website which shall remain nameless) , when I found a cute little 3 bedroom house renting for only $800.00 per month.  My first thought was that the ridiculously low price had to have been a typographical error. My curiosity piqued, I Emailed the contact, and asked him to confirm the amount. I was expecting a one or two line email response confirming my suspicions, but what I received was a preposterous seventeen line work of fiction.  Red flags were raised immediately, as I found it absolutely painful to read his implausible tale. The grammar was deplorable, the sentence structure, nonexistent, the punctuation, mostly missing.  He indicated to me that the price was correct, and to make a long story short, that he was out of the country and would send me the keys, and that I should ignore the agent’s sign that was perched on the front lawn and deal with him directly. I subsequently scrutinized the picture, where I could see a fraction of the realtor’s sign, and…I recognized it. I then went on the realtor’s website and discovered that the house was, in fact, listed with them, for sale.  The scammers apparently hacked the picture and fabricated this elaborate scheme, expecting that someone would fall prey to their deception and send them money. 

     I really do want to trust people, but so many are just not trustworthy. One often reads about scams similar to this one, about how trusting people are robbed blind, especially older people.  I have now witnessed first-hand how easy it is for this to happen.  So, keep this thought in mind: if something seems too good to be true, it is most assuredly, too good to be true.