SCENARIO #2 You have decided to take the plunge and rent a place in Florida for the winter. You go online and after some very dili- gent research, you find the perfect place that is exactly in your price range. You speak to the owner who says that they have had a lot of interest in the place, but that you seem really nice and they’d like you to have it. But they will need you to wire them a deposit today if you are re- ally serious about the place. Once they get your deposit, they will send you a lease to sign. Not wanting to miss out on the deal of the century, you agree and initiate the wire. You exchange a bunch of emails with your new landlord and plan to meet her on January 2 at the place so she can give you the keys, etc. She seems really nice and you are so excited. You two have really hit it off and she didn’t even ask you to sign a lease because “you’ll love the place and it will be fine. We don’t need a contract.” Have you just been scammed? (a) No way. Not possible. You are now Facebook friends
with your new landlord! (b) Possibly. Guess you will have to wait until January 2
to find out. (c) Probably. This is just not how legitimate real estate deals go down.
Let’s go with (b) or (c), but more likely (c). Why? How could this be a scam? You don’t know if the place even exists. There are lots of scams where people pose as land- lords and “rent” out places that don’t even exist. The inter- net makes this stupidly simple to do. You don’t know if the place will actually be available to
you on your move in date. What happens if you show up and someone else is living there? You don’t know if the person you just wired money to
actually had authority to rent the place. What if they aren’t the owner? You don’t have a lease! If you wire money to an individual, and that person is
not legit, then your money is really gone. These types of scams happen all the time. The moral
of this story: work with a realtor. The safest route when you are renting a property is to always work with a realtor. Preferably, you want your future landlord to be working with a realtor as well. You want to wire money to a real
estate agency escrow account (not the landlord directly), after both parties have signed off on a lease agreement. You are also well served by having your realtor inspect the premises to make sure that the place is as represented.
SCENARIO #3 You have an older mare who is retired in your backyard. You love her dearly, but she has become rather high main- tenance in her advanced age. You recently discovered that you have cancer, and the treatments are really taking its toll. As much as you love this horse, you simply can’t care for her alone under the current circumstances. A friend reaches out to a horse rescue organi- zation on your behalf. You speak with the folks from the rescue and, from the pictures, their place looks lovely. You just wish you had the energy to go visit it in person. And, although you hate to let your horse out of your control, you feel quite comfortable with these folks. They just seem so nice and understanding. Plus, they promised to give you the horse back if you recover and feel up to it. Your reaction? (a) This is the miracle you have been waiting for. What a
relief there are still good people in this world. (b) These people might not be for real.
How could this possibly not be for real (b)? You would not believe what kind of horses some people sell. Just because you have retired this horse, doesn’t mean some scoundrel couldn’t pump her full of enough drugs to pass her off as serviceably sound, or sell her as a broodmare. As we have seen in the news recently, the black mar-
ket for horse meat is alive and well in this country. Some people are just animal hoarders. And the thing about animal hoarders is that they usually don’t want to part with any animals they have taken in. So you might recover, but they might not want to return your horse to you no matter what. Some people think they know best. They may think
that you are abusing your horse and have convinced them- selves they need to rescue your horse from you and simply
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