Would you?

You are looking for a place to rent and you see an ad for one in a great neighborhood, going for below anything else in the area.

You contact the landlord and they tell you they have the keys, just go drive by and if you like it wire them your first month’s rent and the deposit and they will mail you the keys.

Which of these are possible outcomes of this scenario?

1. You are so damn lucky, you just got a fantastic deal and will love living there.
2. The place is completely trashed inside and you’ll spend every penny you saved fixing it up to be livable.
3. It used to be a meth lab and after six months of living there you will find out that it made you sick and you have 6 months to live.
4. The house isn’t even for rent, the person you contacted not only isn’t the owner but doesn’t even live in the US and you’ll never see your money again.
5. 1 & 2
6. 3 & 4
7. 2 & 4
8. Anything but #1.

Seems that some people are believing it will be #1 because, according to an article on KSL.com, these ads are out there and they wouldn’t be if nobody was falling for them.

To be fair, before calling these people total idiots for falling for this, the article did point out that a lot of the victims have been young adults, probably renting their first place.

Now, youth does not excuse stupidity by itself, but also consider that these people grew up buying things over the internet, without ever seeing the item or the seller face-to-face.

Still, that doesn’t excuse the lack of common sense, but it does remove the “total” from “total idiot”.