Tragic beginnings

We were very nervous about finding an apartment before we left Kassel. I had posted a listing on Craig's list and Facebook that we were looking for an apartment in Montpellier. I thought it would be a good idea, because Craig's list had been useful in the past when selling items before the move overseas. However, it did not seem likely that we would get any responses, because there were barely any entries in Montpellier's listings. I also emailed people on Facebook that lived in Montpellier for any inside scoops or advice.

We finally received our first response from Craig's list and two responses from my emails on Facebook. Our response from Craig's list was the most promising. The apartment was beautiful, in a decent area, and fairly inexpensive for it's size. We were very excited and began a lengthy correspondence with the owner convincing him that we would be the best tenants for the place. After a few back and forth emails with the owner, we learned that the owner was currently in Texas and was requesting that we send him the deposit before he flew to Europe to begin the paperwork.

When hearing this, our red flags immediately went up. Andy copied a few sentences of the email from our first contact with him and googled it. Of course, the first thing that popped up was that it was a scam. We were heart-broken. There had been a number of slight indicators on the way, but my love for the now imaginary apartment had blinded me, and I had tried to be more optomistic. So, we told the guy to leave us alone and that we knew it was a scam. Back to square one.