I found a nice apartment in Oman on the olx.com.om website and I contacted the owner. He replied to me and said that he is currently in London cause his contract in Oman has finished in 2011, he has the keys from flat in Muscat with him and he will fly to Muscat as soon as he finds reliable tenants. I was interested in a long term rent, the apartment was very nice and I was ready to talk with him on skype to convince him how good and neat couple me and my husband are. I got a long letter from him, his passport copy and not even a single answer to any of my questions… it was like I got the answers from a robot. Then he sent me an email saying: “I had bad experiences with prospective tenants so that it happened for me to travel to Muscat for nothing which involved a complete waste of time and efforts. Having received proofs from tenants according with them being interested in renting (passport, job contracts showing their earnings, bank statements) proved to be ineffective for my certainty. Some tenants tend to put additional conditions even if they had not been discussed previously or worse, they sometimes still try to negotiate after traveling back to London. Some of them also asked me to wait until the end of the month for them to get paid. I hope my explanation is enough for you to understand my point of view and why I chose Airbnb. My apartment is listed on airbnb.com and I have more good reviews. Let me know if you know about airbnb and I if you are ready to rent the apartment for the first month. That is my certainty guarantee and the only way I can come to Muscat.” I said I don’t mind to rent his apartment through airbnb for the first month and asked him to give me the link. He said he will send it to me shortly and I only got it the next day.
This is the address that I saw in my browser after I clicked on the link he sent me: http://airbnb-rent-booking-apartment-verified.ashanti.ro/rooms/2367933?View Which looked exactly like airbnb and had the payment system in it. Of course it was clear for me that this website is fake airbnb and someone was just trying to get a 1500$ transfer from me. So be very careful and make sure you deal with real airbnb 😉
A number of them show awesome apartments on various web sites at ridiculous rates and they do look to good to be true. I replied to a few of them and a passport photo appeared of James from the UK who owns the apartment in Bowshar but left due to his contract ending. Blah blah. Funny how expats cannot own property in Bowshar. Anyway, whomever, sent me the Airbnb site 2 days later, forgot to adjust the comments as 1 comment read, Shelia was as a great host.!!!. Do be careful out there.
Exacty same story with me except that the apartment is in Toronto.
The guy supposedly had to leave for the UK. Got a job there. Need someone to move into his furnished apartment.
To show how trustworthy he was, he emailed me a copy of his passport and wanted my details (which I believe will be used to blackmail me later).
He said I wire transferred the money to him and then he will walk to Airbnb office in London to give them his keys, bla bla bla.
What he didn’t is that I stayed close to the apartment complex and my friend live on the same floor as the apartment number the scammer mentioned. It turned out everything was copy and paste from Airbnb website.
More research using google. It turned out the scammer is from Nigeria using UK number as a ruse.