Today, I had a first...
Current tenant texts me, "I have a coworker who's looking for a place. Got any openings?"
I tell him about one vacancy that should be coming open later this week, and confirm my Google Voice contact number for him to pass on to them to arrange a showing this evening after work.
Previous tenant had a thing for bringing in feral cats, and left me with fleas. I'd treated the house several times times, and left it closed up while I went to Houston twice, and was bogged down with a personal project. I haven't visited it since 9/27 or 9/28, but I decided to pop down and check on a couple of things before I head out of town for the day to run some errands on a different project.
When I arrive, a car is parked outside on the street and is just about to pull away. I park at the curb, and they pull up alongside me, and we both roll our windows down.
"Hi! Do you work with Mr. So-and-So over at [Employer]?" I ask.
"Yeah! You must be Deanna(TX). I talked to you over text."
I haven't had any texts from them, but I go through the usual opening conversation and unlock the house and let them see if it fits their needs, etc, and give them an application to fill out.
It turns out, someone-- either my current tenant or my applicants-- had gone dyslexic for a moment, and accidentally transposed the last two digits of my phone number. The texts that they had received went along the lines of:
"yes so do you intend coming to see it ? it's $1,200 per month, i'm currently in Florida right now to see a Cousin so let me know if your serious about this"
[prospect probably says something about "Uh, $1200? So-and-so said $4xx"
"Oh then you need the other one, there's actually two.. and yes it's available at $450"
[nice recovery]
"Half payment now if your serious, and the rest when your getting the apartment, need to be sure your serious about it"
[prospect says something]
"Great, so make a Western Union transfer to the information and get back to me when it's done.. then we talk better"
"Name: xxxx City: Clearwater State: FL Zip Code: xxxxx"
The funny bit was, when the prospect was confirming the name of our town (probably skeptical that anything rents in our town for four digits), the scammer had no way of knowing what state she was talking about. So, just like there's about thirty or forty states with a town or city named "Arlington" or a place named "Springfield", and you don't know exactly which one is being talked about when it's mentioned without any clues or context, the scammer picked the wrong one, and then proceeded to pretend like it was in the suburbs of a major city, although the town they had confused it with was a good 200 miles away... :)
Anyhow, I just thought it was interesting, that the prospects had accidentally texted the wrong number, and that the person happened to be the sort willing to pull that kind of stunt, and that someone living in FL had ended up with a Google Voice number out of North Texas. And it was further interesting that, in the age of smartphones, he couldn't get his geography accurate, and he might as well be a Nigerian prince with his spelling and grammar. And lastly, I was really amazed that, having gone nearly three weeks without having stepped foot in that house, that we ran into each other unexpectedly at the exact last moment that we could have caught each other, especially before any funds had been wired.
--96.46.xxx.xx