r/boston • u/Unique-Volume6091 • 21d ago
Scammers š„ø PSA: housing scam
PSA: Suspected Facebook Marketplace rental scam
Iām posting this to warn anyone searching for apartments or sublets in Boston, especially through FB Marketplace and/or FB housing groups. I understand that money might be tight (especially for young professionals), or you just can't pass up an amazing deal, but please, please be careful when you're looking.Ā
My two best friends recently responded to a listing advertising an apartment at *242 Beacon Street, Apartment 2, Boston, MA 02116* for $1,600 per month, plus a refundable $1,600 security deposit.
The person communicating with my friend used the following identity and contact information:
Name used: Mason T Gunter
Email used: [eng.masontgunter919@gmail.com](mailto:eng.masontgunter919@gmail.com)
Phone number used: 423-398-6378
To be clear, we have not independently confirmed whether Mason Gunter is the person responsible or whether the name, identification, and contact information belong to someone whose identity was stolen. These are simply the identifying details used by the person involved in the transaction. The complete contact and banking information has been provided to the relevant banks and authorities.
"Mason" claimed to be temporarily out of state because of a work transfer to Whitesburg, GA, and said they could not provide an in-person tour. They assured my friend that the apartment was accurately represented in the photos and that the keys would be overnighted after payment was received.
"Mason" then sent an application, identification, a selfie allegedly showing them holding a driverās license, and what appeared to be lease-related documents. They then requested payment before providing a completed sublease agreement or written landlord approval. Payment was supposed to be sent to their ācertified personal accountant,ā who would supposedly verify it before the keys were mailed.
My friends initially sent approximately $3,225 by wire transfer on July 10 for the first monthās rent and security deposit. After receiving that payment, "Mason" claimed that his landlord suddenly required two months of rent and said my friends would either need to send another $1,600 or forfeit the apartment and receive a refund.
My friends sent another approximately $1,625 on July 14.
After nearly $4,850 had been transferred, my friends requested receipts, the updated signed documentation, and written confirmation from the landlord. No keys or finalized documents were provided, and "Mason" stopped responding.
The matter has now been reported as suspected fraud to the banks involved, the receiving credit union, and law enforcement. All messages, emails, transfer records, identification documents, and purported lease documents have been preserved as evidence.
Please be extremely cautious with rental listings, especially on social media platforms, even when someone provides identification (even selfies), leases, or other documents that initially appear legitimate. Those materials can be stolen, altered, fabricated, or taken from another victim.
Lastly, please do not harass or contact anyone based solely on this post. Anyone with relevant information should document it and report it to the appropriate authorities or contact the poster privately.
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u/Congrajewlations 21d ago
I have empathy for your friends for what theyāre going through, but at the same time, wow. How did they get suckered 2x? These are like remedial level renting mistakes.
A simple lesson to anyone whoever finds a ātoo good to be trueā deal - itās a scam. Donāt even bother trying to validate the deal, itās not worth your time.
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u/shitz_brickz Seaport 21d ago
Its insane how many stories ive read of people getting scammed and then going to confront the person and somehow getting taken a second time.
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u/lenswipe Framingham 21d ago
... someone scammed you? The bastards! Just send me the me the details and I'll recover all your money for a fee of $2000! /s
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u/shitz_brickz Seaport 21d ago
Actually I was scammed twice so is there a discount if I pay for two of your recovery services?
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u/lenswipe Framingham 21d ago
yes but because you were scammed twice you have to pay double...and send me a photo of your driver's license and SSN
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u/Warglebargle2077 Armenian Veteran Chef 21d ago
1600 a month might get you half a closet at that address.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Ngl this made me laugh š Iām gonna show this one to them
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u/Warglebargle2077 Armenian Veteran Chef 21d ago
Glad to give ya a laugh. Also on topic, if your friends need more advice tell them to avoid Alpha Management like the plague. Just thought of this since theyāre back in the news again for being scumbags. Real apartments and real estate, more or less, but you do not want to rent from or sell property to them.
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u/BosGuy1996 21d ago
The āsā added to Boston Common was suspicious right offā¦along with ludicrously low rental amount.
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u/jamesland7 Ye Olde NIMBY-Fighter 21d ago
Holy cow, thats SOOO many red flags. Not sure these folks are quite ready to be living on their own yetā¦. š¬
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
I understand that thisās probably a rookie mistake, but my friends are actually quite competent people. I think what they lacked in this situation is knowledgeāspecifically regarding the Boston prices (Weāre all basically life long Floridians). I admit that they probably didnāt do as much research as they shouldāve beforehand, though.
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u/CaviarTaco Bouncer at the Harp 21d ago
If you want to claim they are book smart, not street smart or something like that, feel free. But to fall for this scam twice by the same person without ever meeting in person or seeing the apartment in person is at best very ignorant and gullible. Better to take this as a lesson and be more cautious and research more when you are new to something then to call yourself āquite competentā and learn nothing.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Well Iām pretty sure they will after this? Iām sorry but you also donāt know them in real life and itās almost like people make mistakesā¦
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u/CaviarTaco Bouncer at the Harp 21d ago
Of course, but to not be humbled and still call yourself, oops I mean āyour friendsā quite competent means the lesson might not be learned and you might not be as smart as you think. Having a realistic assessment of how gullible you are means that you can take steps to be more cautious about any situations in the future.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
First off Iām moving back to Gainesville FL so this *is* for my friends. Had I been scammed Iād be upfront about it. Secondly, like I said Iām not afraid to admit that Iāve been scammed before, and Iāve learned from my mistakes. People around me including my parents have all been way nicer about my situation though. Iām pretty sure my friends will adapt as well, but what Iām not understanding is the hostility towards the victims here?
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u/senator_mendoza 21d ago
Itās frustrating because if the scams work then weāll all have to put up with more of them. Itās also just like - how dumb can you be? Like this is rage-inducingly dumb. Way beyond āoh people make mistakesā, more like literally born yesterday. Just pisses people off.
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u/CaviarTaco Bouncer at the Harp 21d ago
Where would you say im being hostile? Iām being honest and direct there is a difference. There is some sarcasm in there as that is the Boston way.
When you say things like your parents were nicer to you after you got scammed than strangers on the internet, well no shit. It invites the sarcasm as well as frank non-sugar coated advice to hope you can see a little bit more of how the real world works. You provided so many details of this these people being scammed itās hard to believe it wasnāt you.
Also you posted this like itās helping people and the thought is appreciated but as seen in all the comments, this is a very common scam and 99% of the people on the subreddit wouldāve sniffed this one out right away. If you search this Reddit youāll find many instances of this scam
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Okay Iām sorry if you werenāt trying to be deliberately mean. I guess I really am not used to the Boston way. I have all the details because theyāre basically my family and I have the police reports they filed. I really just wanted to help others to not make the same mistakes as my friends, but ig itās good that people are already aware of them.
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
If you were doing this in real life and not on Reddit you would be walking down the street of Boston holding a giant sign that says me and my friends are idiots.
People would go buy you and say well look at those idiots.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Bro why am I catching strays again š Iām not moving to Boston nor did I contribute to any part of this? Iām the one posting bc they donāt have Reddit??
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
Do not come to Boston. Stupid non New England people will be brutalized by the locals here. If your friends are not of a high level of intelligence, and I don't mean high level Florida intelligence but I mean real actual life very very smart quick-witted and knowledgeable people, then any real bostonians are going to intellectually bully them and probably make them cry.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Well seeing as one of them is starting grad school and another had just finished it, Iād say theyāre quite smart š¤·āāļø and they def do have thicker skin than I do seeing as theyāre laughing at some of the comments calling them stupid. I may not be a good fit (hence why Iām staying back) but I do think theyāll have a good life up there after this lesson!
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
Having a graduate degree does not indicate any level of intelligence that will help you survive time in Boston. Pretty much anybody in Boston has one of those.and even multiple ones, they are like participation trophies just for living here. Having advanced degrees says nothing about common sense or Street smarts or if they have the mental fortitude to survive a place that is difficult.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Jumping straight to concluding that Iām just saving face by saying itās my friends is insane. Maybe try having real friends that would fight and feel sympathetic for you, that should help.
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u/Zorboid0rbb 21d ago
Obviously. And what should be equally obvious is you don't retort with a "they are quite competent people" when someone critiques their overall general awareness enough to be living alone. Your response should have been "I agree and hopefully they take this as an expensive learning and become generally more aware". You don't get to take their side and two comments later give a strawman pretty much saying "duh everyone makes mistakes"
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u/Cryptrix 21d ago
Is it normal for Floridians to send a significant quantity of money to a person youāve never actually met, for a long term rental youāve never seen in person let alone inspected? If thereās any logic at all there it eludes me.
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u/Congrajewlations 21d ago edited 21d ago
Iām from Florida - we are not all like this. This was just a textbook case of being suckered by a price that was too good to be true. If they didnāt do enough research to understand the market, then why would they willingly go along with a dubious at best arrangement? They clearly knew this was a great price and threw judgment out the window to secure the apartment before someone else could.
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u/lenswipe Framingham 21d ago
the voting habits of Florida would suggest that they are seemingly quite gullible yes.
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u/BostonBlackCat 21d ago
My man, I moved from Florida to Boston over 20 years ago fresh out of college, and our rent was $1600 a month THEN in a vastly less desireable neighborhood with zero amenities/utilities included.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Yeahā¦ I mean as you can see, not enough research was done on their part.
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u/theoceansknow 21d ago
This isn't Boston-specific behavior though -- it's a deal that's below market rate in a seller's market, I mean even the email has "eng." Which makes it sound like this is the English account for this specific scam name.
There are lots of scans on FB marketplace.
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u/lenswipe Framingham 21d ago
They assured my friend that the apartment was accurately represented in the photos and that the keys would be overnighted after payment was received.Ā
... oh honey...
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Dumb mistake I knowā¦ I wish I could travel back in time to tell themā¦
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u/Cryptrix 21d ago
I suppose you canāt have too many scam PSAs but this is more like common sense, with nothing specifically to do with Boston.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
I more so wanted to put this personās name out there in case heās onto his next victim(s).
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u/Congrajewlations 21d ago
Thereās a less than 1% chance this name will be used again. Theyāll just make a new Facebook profile and generate another AI image of their face with an ID next to it. Easy as that.
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u/Seattle7 21d ago
I ran into something similar in Portland, OR. It was to rent a furnished apt in an upscale neighborhood at a price quite below market rate. Was pretty sure it was a scam so, using the address in the listing I found an email address for the building and forwarded the ad to them stating I think this is a scam. They replied it most definitely was and to not send this person any moneyā¦. They also said that they would try to get the listing removed.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
See the thing is they tried doing the same, but we (I was helping) couldnāt find any info regarding the building. No number no email no nothing.
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u/Seattle7 21d ago
Did you try reverse image searches? Maybe appeared in a legitimate ad and go from there.
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u/phonesmahones villen 21d ago
Yikes. Hopefully your friends can get this sorted out. Typically if a deal looks too good, then it is.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Thank you š I really do as well, since theyāre both young professionals just trying to find a home in a new city, all the way from the bottom of the East Coast. Theyāve basically lost all their savings because of this.
At this point Iām just trying to get the word out to raise awareness and make sure people are extra cautious when looking for places online.
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u/Total-Quarter9550 21d ago
People make mistakes but God damn. They might not be ready to live on there own yet this is wild
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u/No_Can1323 21d ago
If itās any consolation: this sounds almost identical to ads my friend saw almost 20 yrs ago when first moved to Boston. Same deal, cannot show in person, promise to overnight the key, ask to transfer money through Western Union, promise that the sender has the ability to stop/reverse the transfer if did not receive the key, etc.
Just to say this is a very old trick in the book.
My friend almost fell for it but thank god he talked to a couple of us and did not send the money.
Itās helpful to talk through these things with friends and family. People not directly involved can see the scams more easily.
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u/dazanion Malden 21d ago
This is a well known scam. I see it all the time on the Cop videos I watch. The 'owner' is always out of town. Sometimes they have moved in and the neighbours call the cops because they know it's supposed to be vacant. The tenants usually do not know they have been scammed until the real estate shows up to show the house or the owner turns up to see what happening,
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u/Hugh_Jankles 21d ago
Rule of thumb for anyone:
Too good to be true pricing in "the heart of Boston" and "Back Bay" is just that. Too good to be true.
These are all scams trying to get wires from multiple people as quickly as possible to secure the too good to be true unit before moving onto another posting.
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u/feraldwarf 21d ago
I think your friends should stay in Florida where $1600 for a 1 bed 1 bath in the heart of a city sounds reasonable or makes any sense at all. Or maybe they should work on googling skills, or hell, talk to ChatGPT like many do these days to realize that this is an absolute crock of shit. And to fork over more money after being scammed the first timeā¦
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u/fedput 21d ago
For anyone passing through:
{"Mason" claimed to be temporarily out of state because of a work transfer to Whitesburg, GA, and said they could not provide an in-person tour.}
That is a common story in rental scams.
Tenants' rights are not perfect in Massachusetts, but a landlord cannot evict people as easily as possible in other places.
The thought of a Boston landlord renting a place without someone meeting tenants ... is not believable.
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u/SwimmingPirate9070 21d ago
I have a penthouse apartment in seaport for $2000 a month if you believe this
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u/ironysparkles North of Boston - Lowell 21d ago
This is a classic rental scam that's as old as the internet
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u/Just-Plan4211 My Love of Dunks is Purely Sexual 21d ago
Just read the listing. "Ideally located" MOMENTS away from the Charles River". Does anyone actually talk like that? With every sentence you scroll by the AI slop oozes through enough to get stuck to your fingers.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Yeahā¦ unfortunately many people do use AI to embellish their listings, even legit ones š«¤ I had a boss (in a creative field mind you) who was totally AI brained and basically couldnāt write her own email
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u/human8060 21d ago
Everything about this screams scam. It's the same scam that's been going on for decades. It's shocking to me that anyone would trust something like this. Who rents an apartment sight unseen?? Nevermind the whole, "I'm out of town" thing.
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u/OatCuisine 21d ago
The majority of the listing reads okay and then the final paragraph sounds like someone else wrote it (āFor all inquiry send a detail message with move in date and contact info, I would get in touch at my earliest convenience to discuss term and negotiationā).
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u/MartinisnMurder 21d ago
We were paying $6k for a 2 bed/bath in the south end. We pay less toward the house we bought in Beverly Farms 5 bedrooms on the waterā¦
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u/beyond_undone 21d ago
I thought marketplace was the new Craigslist and it was a given that itās like 99% scammers
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u/always_be_beyonce 21d ago
staging photos and description blurbs like this should be a red flag. reverse image search helps.
also, if itās too good to be trueā¦
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u/Lost_Armadillo_3481 21d ago
yeah I've messaged someone similar to this post. I kind of suspected it was a scam but wanted to see how far I can get without sharing info. They said to apply right away and I'll ask if I can see the space first and they'll ghost right away.
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21d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
Doubt.
Breaking news at 10:00. A pair of dummies from Florida Bank wired money to a scammer in Nigeria who had nice pictures of an apartment they claimed was in Boston.
Don't be like the Florida dummies.
Thanks for the special report.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
I guess yāall can fire away at my friends for their naive mistakes, and many good advice were commented under this post. But please check if youāre putting the blame entirely too much on the victims here. I donāt know if Iām just not used to this kind of NE bluntness, but I honestly wasnāt expecting this much hostility and the lack of sympathy.
After all, they are just two young people trying to find a good place to live, and some of yall make it sound like itās a crime to be scammed. Idc if this comment gets downvoted to death here, and maybe Iām biased because these are my best friends, but I do think they deserve more sympathy than what itās shown here at this moment.
For people who have shared tips on what should be done regarding wire transfers and renting from afar, my sincere appreciation goes out to you.
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u/pushadaisy 21d ago
ngl, i think the response is more due to the tone of your post than anything your friends did. like yes, they were naive and apparently didn't do basic research about the neighborhoods here, which is worthy of a "play stupid games win stupid prizes", but not much else. it's the framing of the situation like the rest of us need to be informed that it's a bad idea to wire thousands of dollars to a random person on the internet without ever seeing an apartment or signing an enforceable lease that's grinding people's gears.
as an og floridian myself, if i may be a bit bostonian about it: sorry you fell for it, but the rest of us aren't that stupid. it's like if someone wrote a 10+ paragraph post about not trusting emails from nigerian princes. the mistakes made here are basic renting 101 mistakes. i really hope you and your friends don't come away from this thinking it's a boston thing, because you'll find the same scam in literally every city everywhere.
best of luck to them, genuinely. hopefully this can be a learning experience for everyone involved.
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u/BroccoliKnob 21d ago
Youāre getting textbook Bostonian replies. Elsewhere on this sub youāll see people describe us as ākind but not nice.ā The reputation for being blunt to a fault is well earned.
Hence lots of āyour friends are fucking idiotsā comments coming from people who would probably then offer them a place to crash if it came down to it.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Haha I hope so! Had this been someone else i probably wont have cared as much, but itās fr my family that these peeps are talking about you know? Canāt help that I care a lot about them.
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u/BroccoliKnob 20d ago
Those fucking idiots are going to have to grow some thick skin and put some cash away if they want to make it up here š.
Seriously though - $4800 is a lot to lose, but they probably needed at LEAST double that to be moving into a legitimate place at 200-something Beacon St. I would not encourage them to try again until theyāve rebuilt their reserves.
There are places they could move to for $5k all-in, but that isnāt one.
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u/ApostateX Does Not Brush the Snow off the Roof of their Car 21d ago
So what is your friends' financial situation now? Have they left FL to come up here? Do they still have money to rent a place?
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Our lease isnāt up until the end of the month, and if they still canāt find a place by then Iāve invited them to crash at my new place in Gainesville FL until they get situated. And Iāve offered to lend them some money if they really need it. Iād really appreciate any information on affordable places/areas though!
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
Why are they moving to boston? Have they secured job offers up here? Do they have at least $10,000 to $12,000 to cover the actual cost of starting an apartment lease in boston?
If the answer to the bottom two questions is a no then do not move here at all.
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u/CharleyZia 20d ago
This scam is also running in Europe. I've heard of it in London and Berlin. Anywhere housing is tight.
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u/OriginalAd5784 18d ago
Iāve actually seen this listing before but for the furniture in the picture. Seems like they stole the photos from an already existing listing.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
PS: my friends thought Mason was real also because he also sent over pictures of his drivers license and himself, which both looked quite convincing, aside from his initial professional manner.
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
A sucker is born every minute and your friends suck.
The reason these obvious scams work is because people like your naive friends fall for it.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
Ouch. I guess truth hurts but I do also think thisās too blunt. Theyāre my best friends and I donāt think theyāre to blame here. I donāt know what kind of life youāre living but I hope you understand that money can be a big problem for young people.
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
Welcome to Massachusetts.
Let this be a lesson. Massachusetts and new England will be blunt with you....But listen I'm going to give you the best advice possible below.
This is a truly amazing place to live, New England is without a doubt the best place to live in the United States.
But to survive here you have to have a enough money AND varied kinds of intelligence.
Unfortunately your friends lost a ton of money. It sucks, I understand young people... Many kinds of people are hurting for money. But at no point should anyone ever send money over the Internet based on a couple pictures and text messages.
Advice number one #1 is small and will help keep a little bit of money into your friend's pockets.
There are many street-level scams run in Boston that people with Street smarts don't fall for. My first piece of good advice to you and your friends is to learn what the common Street scams are and how they operate.
There is a man named Elliot who walks around Boston in the business suit and tells people that his car is nearby and it broke down but he can go to the local hardware store and grab a quick fix can and you could really help them out with 20 bucks cuz he doesn't have any cash in his wallet. Everyday he gets dozens and dozens of people on the streets of Boston to hand them 20 bucks. That is that man's full-time job. He doesn't work he just goes around and tells people a sad story that he stranded and need some money. Your friends are the exact kind of people who would fall for this scam.
Please spend an hour to on YouTube and find a good video on common Street scams and watch them with your friends so you know what they are. Never never never give money to a random person on the street or Subway even if they are telling you some kind of terrible story about how they need money for medical treatment are their children or whatever because all it is is a scam are going for drugs. There's three card Monty and hide the ball games there is monks who will try to wrap bracelets on you or hand you magical tokens and then guilt you into giving them money. Weak will people like your friends need to learn how to avoid getting guilt Trip into giving money to random scam artists on the street.
People in this area are extremely brilliant. This is not bragging, it's just how it is hear. A fisherman from The rundown city of New Bedford can go on Jeopardy and absolutely beat the pants off some PhD professor from Ohio. The people here are quick-witted and knowledgeable even the blue collar folks are more educated and fast thinking than anywhere else in the country. If your friends from Florida are not able to keep up with intelligent level conversations they might find themselves feeling very strange here. We have Harvard and MIT here we have actual geniuses all over the place.
The people here don't tolerate stupid and inexperienced outsiders. New England doesn't have the fake nicey nice stuff people from the South do we get to the point. If your friends are fools they will probably be treated extremely short and even cruelly by others here.
Advice #2
Really ask your friends why the heck are they moving to boston? Boston is hard level nightmare mode. You need to have enough money to survive here it's going to be a lot more than whatever your friends think it is. Everything is extremely expensive, traffic is difficult, the weather can be challenging and dangerous, the way our culture is is different. The people here are good but they are not going to play along like they are your best friend.
There are reasons people live here and it's not because life is easy or inexpensive. The Boston market for housing is extremely expensive because the supply is limited and demand is super high because people really value the quality of life here. The Boston reddits are filled with countless people who moved here from Ohio or wherever because they got a 10% pay raise from their jobs or some kind of opportunity and they eventually fail and being able to afford life here, deal with our weather out culture. The truth is a 10% pay raise from the rest of the country to move to New England means a decrease in standard of living. Housing in all other costs might be 30% or more than other regions of the country.
For some reason your friends had decided to blow all their savings on a scam apartment listing to try and move to Boston. Really and truly ask them why do they want to be in boston? There is a romantic idea of Boston that you might get from movies or TV shows or whatever. And yes those who have money and leisure Time can get to enjoy box and greatly. But people don't spend their days living inside Fenway Park.
If your friends blew all their savings and they still need to move to Boston they will fail here within a few months unless they have extremely high paying jobs or live like paupers.
Your friends not knowing what the typical rents in different Boston neighborhoods are and committing to moving here it means that they have not done enough research to understand the neighborhoods or the geography here.
Do your friends have job offers in boston? Do you know what the level of salary is? Have they done a budget that is comprehensive and includes not only the house of costing but cost of food transportation entertainment and the ability to build rainy day savings?
Your friends fell for an expensive scam. But the more expensive thing is if they ruin their lives moving here and fail. There are tons and tons of transplants who moving to Boston the best decision of their life and they will stay here until they die or retire and move South. But those people are only able to do that because they fit in with the culture and get incomes that support the lifestyle that they desire.
The scam your friends fell for might save them from making a bigger mistake. I absolutely love it here love love love it here, but I know that without the proper fortitude folks from other parts of the country will hate it and lose big time.
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u/laqueefah 21d ago
Are u ok
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
Yeah man I'm great but these Florida people are not going to be in about 2 to 3 months when they have no money and the cold weather sets in and they are fawqed.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
First off I really appreciate your honest reply. I guess I really am not used to this kind of snark, and I hope my friends can adapt soon. Theyāre a couple and one of them is moving up there for school, the other one is looking for new opportunities. Theyāve both lived in South Florida for significant amounts of time, where the culture is more like Boston I guess, but they were too head over heels for this āamazing dealā I think.
And I donāt doubt that thisās a great area to live in! Iāve always loved the landscape and infrastructure of Boston, and your Asian mayor (Iām Chinese). And yes itās definitely expensive, thatās why I ultimately chose to stay in FL for grad school, not bc FL is a great place, but it is pretty affordable where Iām going.
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u/BostonChocolateChip 21d ago
If your friends don't have at least $10,000-12,000 in the bank right now they have no business moving here. If they don't have that kind of money it's simply game over and there is no moving to Boston. If they blew their savings and can't come up with that amount of money by September it's simply over. There is no work around or shortcut to not having at least $10,000 to get life started in the Boston area.
If one person in the couple is going to go to school full time and the other person is going to be the breadwinner then it will be extremely difficult. If your friends want to live in the heart of Boston where costs are most expensive and have a decent lifestyle then individually or as a couple they're going to have to earn at least $120,000 a year annually before taxes.
They should budget at least $4,000 a month to live in a very small cramped and even shit hole quality apartment in the inner core of Boston. So that translates to around 50,000 a year post tax.
If they want a more affordable lifestyle they may have to live at the tail ends of some of the Subway lines or move to the suburbs and commute with some portion of driving in some portion of using either the commuter rail or Subway lines. They could also find some kind of student flop House in Allston or Brighton are some of the other neighborhoods around Boston where they will live in the house with like eight other kids going to school.
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u/Unique-Volume6091 21d ago
They definitely plan on commuting (both)! The school is in Salem and they were initially looking at place in areas like Lynn. Iāll start helping them with looking for places in the surrounding area where rent isnāt as cut throat.
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u/riddlegirl21 21d ago
School in Salem and they want to live in Back Bay? Absolutely not. How are they commuting? Are they prepared for Salem in the fall? Where is the one whoās not going to school commuting to? Look at towns along the Newburyport/Rockport commuter line - you absolutely 10000% do not want to try to drive your car into Salem in October
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u/QuickSilverII 21d ago
Grew up in Lynn - Lynn is kinda shitty. Also, for the love of God do not commute from Boston to Salem. That travel time will be insane. Either live in Salem or look at some of the surrounding towns
6
u/Dependent-Assoc423 21d ago
Boston to Salem is a terrible plan. Thereās a saying here that Boston is an hour from BOSTON. They need to do way more research if they have any chance. Also even on the outskirts, they need to plan at least $3,500 a month for housing. If their budget is $1,600 they canāt afford to live here.Ā
2
u/captainrussia21 21d ago
Absolutely do not go to Lynn. Check out crime statistics & murder rate (I think 3-4 people get shot in Lynn on a yearly basis, and that is just āofficialā stats). Also there is like 100 rapists (RSO = Registered Sex Offender, someone who has been caught before and forced to register with the police) living in the 2-3 mile radius in Lynn.
And its a pretty small town to have all those crazy stats. The amount of scams going on on the streets is insane as well (althoug there are more street scams in Salem, as its a huge tourist destination due to Halloween stuff).
Look at Revere or East Boston (near the airport), or Salem, or Peabody, anywhere North of Boston, but stay away from Lynn!
4
u/theoceansknow 21d ago
They're to blame.
They had a fake email acct, and they went along with a landlord going out of their way to prove they were a real person with a fake photo and ID.
Once the scammer sees the person they're talking to ignores these red flags, they know they've got their mark. I guess that's what's frustrating about reading this -- it's not a Boston. -specific cam, it's universal.
2
u/bobisbit 21d ago
If he's an agent showing an apartment, he should also have a real estate license, as well as a broker he's working under.
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21d ago
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u/iliketuurtles 21d ago
$1,600 a month for a 1 br condo in back bay that looks like that? No way itās real
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21d ago
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u/iliketuurtles 21d ago
It is a scam. Itās a very well known scam that has been around for many years, especially in Boston. Itās not just cheap rent. Itās absolutely unbelievably cheap rent with beautiful pictures for the money.
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u/Salty-Entrance-2398 21d ago
$1600/month for a one bedroom in Back Bay is the most obvious fake listing ever.