Well, I found someone who is meeting me this afternoon at the address so at least this guy exists and is local!
Bring a friend, arrive 40mins before the agreed time to see if he is meeting someone else there and taking money from them. Get license plate numbers, etc. Be careful!
Also set up a fake email account under a different name and email the guy saying you're interested in the same property. Would be interesting to see where that leads.
I have since received no fewer than 5 replies from people who claim to have suddenly been sent out of the country and need someone to take care of their home. 4 are missionaries to Nigeria. It sure seems improbable that so many East Bay residents were suddenly being sent to Nigeria and say so in word for word identical emails. The guy yesterday was real, but I could tell at first glance I was not interested in the house (the advertised "yard" was concrete and the neighborhood looked scuzzy) so I did not bother with his ID since I was not giving him any information or $. For the sake of courtesy I took a token look around and thanked him for his time. At least he existed!
You should stay in contact with those missionaries, I hear the royal family of Nigeria will often ask them to help get their money out of the country and you could make a nice profit assisting in that.
FYI: On craigslist, when dealing with real estate especially, most ads that do not displays a contact name and phone number are fake/scams!
