Day two, oh the pressure!  It will be interesting to see how much of a struggle or how easy it will be to blog everyday.  We gave ourselves some outs, in that any photos, quotes, worthy articles or short observations count as a post.  Today we found out that one of our acquaintances, we’ll call him “Duke” was scammed from a not-so-honest person.  The basic story is this:  Duke was looking for a room share situation, posted his request on Craigslist, and along came a lady who had a room available.  He went to visit and look at it and everything was great – he paid his first month’s rent and security deposit directly to the lady, and set his move-in date for four weeks later.  But as the move-in date got closer, the communication was sporadic and somewhat odd — the explanation was that the lady was having some medical issues and was getting treatment in Seattle.  Being the compassionate person that this Duke is, he believed her and wished for her the best.  He hired people to move from his current residence to the new one.  But on that Thursday move-in date, she was not available to meet him, but promised that her husband would be there on Saturday.  So Duke cancelled the movers and rehired them for Saturday.  But when Saturday morning came around, and after having his calls and texts to the lady remaining unanswered, he came to the realization that he had been scammed.  Duke went back to the apartment that he was supposed to share.  It was empty.  After talking to the upstairs neighbor and tracking down the landlord, he found out that lady was actually evicted a week ago due to failure to pay rent.  And now she was nowhere to be found.  Of course, she already had Duke’s money.  It was a perfectly executed con — she invited Duke over while she still had the place, took his money order for securing his tenancy, and then she strung him along, pushing back the move-in date until she skipped town.  And now Duke is pretty much screwed.  He has no recourse to retrieve his money.  He’ll file a police report, but he’ll join the landlord and who knows how many other people in trying to find this lady.  But in the meantime he is in between places.  Fortunately he can stay a few more days at his current place, but someone else is moving in so Duke will need to vacate his residence within the next couple of weeks.  Obviously, Duke feels pretty low and disappointed that he got taken for a ride and lost his money.  We chatted about his experience, and perhaps this will actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise.  I’m hopeful that he’ll find the perfect place, close to work and with good people he can live with, and though this lesson costed him a lot of money, perhaps it will all turn out for the better.  Duke is a good guy, and he deserves good things to happen to him.  And that is why I am keeping the faith.