Alan Stout and Angela Miceli thought they’d found the perfect spot for their wedding party—an attractive home in Seattle’s University District, a few minutes walk from the church where they’d say their vows. But when they showed up at the front door, they found the home was already lived in.
A Craigslist scammer had just ruined their wedding—and run off with $3,000.
It wasn’t his first time, either.
“I’m like, frick, this happened again,” Brendan Kenny, whose uncle rents out the home, told King5 news. “This is the fourth time in four months!”
Four times in the past four months, Kenny said, the same guy has run the same scam, running off with thousands of dollars in wired cash. Each time Kenny flags the ads as abuse, but they always come back.
It’s another sign, if you needed one, that Craigslist is a risky place to do business. You might think, for instance, that the two people coming to buy your Pomeranian are honest, upstanding folks—until they pull a knife, grab the dog, and drive off. Others have bought cars on Criaglist, only to find them gone the next morning, stolen back by the seller, who’d kept a pair of keys.
Kenny urges renters to avoid Craigslist entirely, and instead head to legitimate real estate sites that actually vet their advertisements.
Instead of a pleasant house, Stout and Miceli are shacked up in a hotel as they prepare for their August 9 wedding. The show must go on, after all—they’ve already paid for the church. But they’re scrambling to find a place for their friends and family to stay.
There’s no word if police are on the case, but Miceli seems more concerned with divine retribution.
“I e-mailed the guy last night, and I told him he is a bad person,” she said. “I told him I hope God’s justice would strike upon him.
“If there are any reports of someone getting struck by lightning, that’s the guy!”
H/T and photo via King5