If you live in Canada, you are probably familiar with Kijiji. It's a website where you can post ads for free to buy anything you want and sell anything you have. And Kijiji is where the scammer found me.
So, let's jump straight to the incident. Only few days were left for me to move to a new house from where I was living as my lease was going to end. And finding a room for yourself can be quite difficult when you are an international student. And it gets even harder when you are with your spouse. I don't know why but not everyone is ready to give a room to a couple. I had been looking for a room for me and my wife. And I visited almost every ad posted on Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace. Unfortunately, some were too expensive, some were too far, and some didn't allow couples to stay. So, even after visiting all the ads and messaging almost every one of them, I couldn't find any room.
A couple of months before this incident, I had posted an ad on Kijiji saying that a couple needed a room. And I had received a few good offers. Since the ad was already expired, I reposted it this time as I didn't have luck with any of the ads I approached. 5 minutes later, I started getting text messages on my phone. I had left my phone number in the ad. So, all of them were contacting me through my phone number rather than directly texting on Kijiji. I started seeing some hope.
I was texting with more than 3 persons at the same time, switching back and forth. They asked me to give my email address so that they could send the pictures of the room. I gave them my email address and received the pictures. I showed all the pictures to my wife and she liked one the most among all others. I stopped replying to others and continued texting with the one whose property my wife had chosen.
Till here, my biggest mistake was that I ignored the similar pattern of their questions. Everyone who contacted me asked very similar questions, and the process from approaching me to asking for email address was the same. At first, they asked when and why we wanted to move, and then they wanted to know if we are quiet and clean enough or not. Then when I said I liked the room, they asked me to secure the room immediately. Of course, I had a feeling that they all were asking the same questions but I neglected it by thinking that it was just a common formality.
Well, I resumed my conversation with this guy. And he said the same thing - if I wanted the room, I had to secure it immediately so that he would not look for any other tenants. So, he sent me a word (Microsoft Word) file which was supposed to be the application form. He then asked me to fill that form and send him one month's rent to secure the property. And here I committed the second mistake. We only had seen the pictures of the property and I sent him the amount he asked for. We just had a week left in our old room because of which we were desperately looking for a new room, and we were very worried that we might end up finding no room to stay. So, we just trusted him and sent him one month's rent which was $550.
If you are in Canada, you surely know about Interac e-transfer. If you don't know, it's a payment system in which we use email address instead of bank account number to send and receive money, though the money ultimately is deposited in the bank account. He sent me an email address which according to him was his lawyer's email address, and asked me to send the rent to that address. I sent the amount to that email id and sent him the screenshot of e-transfer which he asked for. He then sent me the receipt of payment which had his lawyer's signature and stamp.
After a while, he called me on my number. He said the amount wasn't deposited. What I have noticed with the e-transfer system is that whenever I send money to a new email address or whenever I receive money from a new email address, it takes some time to process. So, I thought that would be the reason his lawyer didn't receive the amount, and I asked him to wait. He then asked me to check with the bank and settle it immediately so that his lawyer could proceed with the formality. And at this point, maybe I made the dumbest mistake. When I signed in to my banking app, I could only see "There's been some unusual activity in your account" and the app wouldn't allow me to proceed. I got scared. And I should have stopped there. Instead, I called him and told him that the banking app showed some issue which didn't look right to me. I told him that I didn't feel safe to proceed. He then explained to me saying that it happens sometimes with the banks when there's a transaction between new sender and receiver and that there's nothing to worry about.
Sometimes, when your luck doesn't want to favor you, it just doesn't favor you at all. Usually, when I call my bank to get any information or solve any issue, I have to wait for several minutes (sometimes more than half an hour) to have someone pickup the call. But since the luck didn't want to be in my favor, the lady from the fraud department immediately answered my call. I informed her about the issue, and she told me that the amount was put on hold because the bank just wanted to confirm that the e-transfer was not done mistakenly and that it was actually me who did that transaction. I then told her that it was me who sent it and it was for the rent. She then proceeded with the transfer. Then I got the notification in my email showing that the amount was deposited.
By this point, we had stopped looking for any other rooms since we had paid one month's rent and secured the room for us. We both were kind of relieved that we finally found a room. But then this twist appeared in the story. The next morning, he texted me and asked me to pay another one month's rent saying that his lawyer wanted to proceed with the lease agreement for which the first and last months' rent had to be paid. At this point, my wife was not having a good feeling about whatever was going on. She even said that the guy seemed to a scammer. I instead explained to her that paying the first and last months' rent is common in Canada. He sent me a long text explaining that since we wanted to move sooner than the 1st of the month, we had to settle everything sooner. Convinced by weird reasons, I sent him another one month's rent, i.e. another $550. And he had assured me that he would be showing us the property after 3 days.
He texted me next morning and greeted me. Maybe he wanted to give me the impression that he had not gone anywhere and that I could rely on him. Later in the afternoon, he asked me whether I was aware of government's plan for cheaper housing in Ontario. I said I didn't know. He then called me up and started explaining. I don't clearly remember everything he said but I think the deal was something like this: I would have to pay another 2 month's rent and then the government would be paying extra 5 or 6 months' rent on my behalf. At this point, I started getting skeptical. So, I told him that I wasn't feeling good about whatever was going on. He then sent me a picture where he was holding his health card, and told me to trust him. I then told him that I wanted to go with the usual way of renting the room rather than getting into the government's cheaper housing plan. He agreed.
He didn't stop here. He called me up again. This time he said his lawyer was going to be on vacation or something like that. So, he said that his lawyer wanted him to ask me for a damage deposit. And when he said the damage deposit would be $650, I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that the damage deposit would be more than one month's rent. I don't know if I was too desperate to find a room or if he was too good in convincing, I agreed to send the money when he convinced me that the money was refundable and that I didn't have to worry at all since he was going to show us the room a couple of days later.
Next day he called me up and apologized for a misunderstanding. He said he thought that the damage deposit was enough for both of us but his lawyer told him that $650 was just for one person, and another same amount was needed to be deposited for the second person. At this point, my wife and I were not able to decide what to do and what not to. And it was too late to say but I said to him that we would be looking for another room since his deal seemed unaffordable to us. He said he would talk to his lawyer to further suggestion. He called back and said we could pay $500 this time instead of $650. I argued that we wouldn't be able to send any more money to him if he kept asking for money. He said it would be the last amount I would have to send, and he would meet us the next day to show the property. So, I sent him $500. This time he asked me to send the money to another email address which he said was his wife's email id (later, upon inquiry, I found out that she's not his wife. She didn't even know this person. She was told by someone else to receive the money and transfer it to someone).
Finally, the day came. He had told us to be at the property at 4:00pm. We were all ready to go to see our new room in a new house when he texted me and said he was outside, and that he would meet us at 8:00pm. I asked him to do it early but he didn't reply. After waiting for some time, I texted him saying that I wanted to cancel the deal and I wanted all the money back. After some minutes, he replied saying that we would try to come early. I texted him back telling him how urgent it was for us to find a new room to stay. He replied saying that he was driving and that he would soon get back to me. And he never came back. He said he would see us at 8:00pm but after 6:30pm, he was unavailable. He actually blocked me from calling him. I called him from my wife's number but he cut it immediately. We tried to reach him but he just disappeared.
I reported this case to CAFC (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre) online but I was disappointed to read that CAFC doesn't investigate. So, I called my bank and informed about the incident. They said it would take 10 business days to review the case. 10 days went by and nothing happened. I then reported it to the police's fraud department. They took all the details and finally said, "It will take several months".
A year went by, and there was no update. After about 16 months from the incident, I received an email from the police's fraud department which said, "no further action will be taken at this time and this investigation is final". The main reason they mentioned was that there's no consumer protection when buying/selling/renting products on sites like Kijiji, Craigslist, and Facebook Market Place. That was the end of our hope of getting our money back.
You could be a victim too. So, if you are looking for a room on Kijiji or marketplace, it might not be a good idea to send money unless you actually visit the place and see the room with your own eyes. Or at least, you should first sign a lease. If you are renting the room from a rental agency, then they will have a their letter head with the logo in the lease agreement. And you can also find information about them on the internet. But if you are dealing with individuals rather than a rental agency, be sure to ask them to show you the property first. If they are willing to show you the property, they are genuine. Otherwise, stay alert!
(This incident happened in Aug-Sep 2021, and I had already shared this story in a Facebook group to make everyone aware and cautious. I just happened to recall this unfortunate incident. So, I'm sharing it again as a blog post in March 2025.)
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