Craigslist Scam Pulled on SnowGlobe Attendees
Submitted by paula on Mon, 12/30/2013 - 11:50pm
They knew something was amiss when they couldn't find the home on Saddle Road listed on their vacation rental home contract. A group of 15 college students came to South Lake Tahoe to enjoy the three day SnowGlobe festival, where their time would be spent at the concert, enjoying the town and kicking back in a fully furnished ski cabin. But the lodging situation wasn't as expected since they fell victims to a "craiglist" scam and paid for a rental home that wasn't real.
Three of the students, Adam, Aidan and Josh, were in the South Lake Tahoe Police Department on Monday morning, filling out police forms in hopes of being able to find the perpetrators of the elaborate scheme and retrieving their lost money.
Since they knew scams could occur on the popular website they thought they were following all the rules to prevent being scammed. They let their parents know what they were doing and all seemed to be legitimate. Numerous phone calls and texts were made between the two parties, even on the day they arrived in South Lake Tahoe, December 29.
One of the students even met with the "son of the owner" in San Francisco on Christmas Eve to pick up the keys.
The group found alternative lodging prior to the beginning of Sunday's SnowGlobe show and they are in good spirits and enjoying themselves. They said everyone has been very nice to them.
The students are from a few schools, including UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly as well as two from Australia. The police officer that took the report on Monday said they'd do what they could, but that normally these types of cases don't have any resolution.
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