Need to Upgrade!

Our lease is up in May and I really, really want to move! This once, cozy little apartment just outside of Boston has quickly turned into a very cramped apartment in the crappy suburbs. It was a great first home, and I will never forget the millions of memories we have here, but its coming up on the two year mark, and its time for this bride to be to upgrade.

We have discussed possibly buying something, but honestly I want to put that idea on hold till after the wedding- one big stressful thing at a time! So right now we are searching for our next apartment, and the first home we will have as newlyweds.

Maybe I'm being picky- but thus far the search has been unsuccessful. I'm not too "set in stone" with a neighborhood; we both work in the Backbay, so some where with an easy commute would be nice. All we need is one bedroom, and somewhere to park our car.

I used to look at Craigslist everyday, just to see what was available, BUT- no more. I lost all faith in craigslist- just a couple weeks ago I was almost scammed by a shady post.

The Fiance and I were scanning the usual "for rent" section when we saw a fantastic condo in the backbay. It was two bed, two bath, two parking spots and was walking distance to both of our offices! We both knew it had to be too good to be true, but just for the hell of it we e-mailed the contact on the post . A day or two goes by and we get a response from "Julie", she explained to us that she had to move to England for a couple of years for work and wanted to rent out her condo. She attached additional pictures, and explained that utilities were included but the lease would be a max of five years. Sounds perfect huh?

After bouncing back and forth e-mails all week, she finally told us that a third party would involved (rent.com) so that we could take the keys and view the condo before paying rent. I was super excited, this condo sounded like a dream come true. I even called my current leasing office to see if I could get out of my lease early!

Here was the catch- in the last e-mail she mentioned a money order, that we would need to put on hold as a deposit. The transaction sounded very shady, so I shared e-mails with a co-worker of mine. She then told me that the whole story sounded VERY familiar, and sure enough it was a scam! A TOTAL SCAM!

When I googled various lines from the e-mails, exact copies came up, posted on fraud web sites. I was so sad, but grateful that people posted those e-mails so that other innocent people are warned.

So now we are back to the drawing board (sigh)...

If anyone hears of anything- let me know :)

XoXo
BB