A West Village resident was able to steer clear of a fishy online rental listing. Susan Jhun filed this report. 

“It was a studio apartment for $2,000,” Maureen Gillespie says.

The apartment was fully furnished, a steal in Midtown Manhattan.

Gillespie found the rental on Craigslist and contacted the man offering it who claimed to be a realtor.

“We made an appointment to go see the apartment,” she says.

But before Gillespie had her meeting, she became suspicious by the so-called realtor's private email address and informal voicemail greeting. Alerted by the red flags, Gillespie says she called the realty company and spoke with the realtor who turned out not to be the man she was communicating with.

“He said, ‘This has been happening for two weeks. I don't have an appointment with you. You need to call the police,’” Gillespie recalls.It was a close call for Gillespie who was lucky not to be one of thirty people nationally who fall victim to rental property scams daily, according to FBI’s Cyber Crimes Task Force.

 “Look at the address, look at all the information that’s provided on there and do your own research outside of that website. So if you're on Craigslist, see if another website also hosts that property. If another website hosts that property, make sure it's the same contact information,” says Mitchell Thompson, a supervisory special agent with the FBI.

We tried to get a comment from Craigslist but our calls weren't returned; however, there is a warning for customers on its site telling them how they can avoid scams.

If you want to report an internet scam go to FBI’s Internet Cyber Crimes Center at ic3.gov.