Part One: Warm Up
Discuss the following questions with your partner(s).
- What is a ‘scam’? Give a general definition as well as one or two examples.
- What can people do to protect themselves from scams?
- When looking for a room, apartment, or house to rent online, have you ever come across a suspicious listing? What about it made you suspicious?
Part Two: Vocabulary / Reading
Open the exercise and follow the instructions.
Exercise
Part Three: Now You Try
Intro Rental Listing 1 Rental Listing 2 Rental Listing 3
Open each of the three apartment rental listings. Look at each listing and its accompanying email. With your partner(s), discuss the following for each listing:
- Are there any red flags?
- Is this a genuine rental or a scam?
$2000 - 2BR / 1 BA - Mount Pleasant apartment
2 bedroom / 1 bathroom
available Jul 1
Two bedroom apartment available July 1st.
Main floor of character house with large, bright, spacious rooms.
W 18th and Manitoba. Close to Main Street shopping and restaurants.
20 minutes to downtown Vancouver.
Shared coin laundry in basement.
Rent includes heat and hot water.
Strictly no pets and no smoking.
Email from landlord:
$2000 - 2 BR / 2BA - Gorgeous Coal Harbour views pet friendly downtown Vancouver condo
2 bedroom / 2 bathroom
pet friendly
furnished
available now
Available immediately. Don’t miss out on this beautiful 1,100 sq ft 2 bedroom 2 bathroom luxury condo in the heart of downtown Vancouver.
The unit comes fully furnished with brand new state-of-the-art appliances, new beds and new mattresses in both of the bedrooms, and new sofas in the bright living room. All rooms are spacious with big windows and lots of natural light. Cats and dogs are OK.
Building includes full amenities such as swimming pool and fully equipped gym.
Rent is $2000 per month and includes all utilities, high speed Internet, and two private parking spots.
Email from landlord:
$2500 - 2 BR / 1BA - Charming 2 bedroom in the West End
2 bedroom / 1 bathroom
pet friendly
available Jul 1
Large 2 bedroom suite with original hardwood floors on the second floor of a 1930s heritage building. Large rooms with lots of natural light.
Chilco and Haro. Close to Stanley Park and shopping on Robson and Denman.
No smoking.
One small cat OK with pet deposit. No dogs.
Unfurnished.
Common laundry in building.
Street parking only.
Rent includes heat/hot water. Tenants must pay hydro and other utilities.
Email from landlord:
Teacher's Note
Rental listing 1
There are a couple of red flags—low price, owners live out of town, but nothing seems completely unreasonable/suspect—probably not a scam
Rental listing 2Many red flags—very low price for area/amenities—too good to be true / landlord gives far too many irrelevant details about his life/situation / landlord asks for information that is not necessary to rent an apartment / landlord asks for wire transfer / landlord is out of the country / landlord won’t meet in person or show the apartment
Bonus red flag not mentioned in the reading—English in the listing is very good but English in the email is inconsistent
Rental listing 3
No red flags—most likely a genuine listing
Part Four: Taking it Further
Work with your partner(s) to go to Craigslist and try to find a listing for a two-bedroom apartment that you would both like to rent. Make sure that you tell each other what you like and don’t like about the listings.
Once you have chosen a listing, discuss whether or not there are any red flags. Then, decide if you would contact the landlord or avoid this listing together before reporting your findings to the rest of the class.