I believe I was a victim of Thomas and Carla Flanagan's scam as well. I'm communicating this information to the local authorities and the Federal Trade Commission. I'd recommend anyone who has paid money or given personal information to "Carla" or "Thomas Flanagan" do the same.

I have subleted a unit this summer, no problems yes, but I am now curious because of this post....

It strikes me as unusual that current (as opposed to prospective) tenants with no problems would be researching this phone number. It seems more likely that only prospective tenants, individuals believing they were scammed, and the OWNER OF THE PHONE NUMBER would stumble upon this site. Only the latter has an incentive to post positive comments; the others would likely either be negative warnings or neutral. If current tenants were to research this phone number, it seems more likely that it would be the disgruntled current tenants, not the satisfied current tenants that would be researching the phone number and posting. I'm not saying this with certainty, but just suggesting that positive comments by CURRENT tenants seem strange and should perhaps raise a flag, particularly when made shortly after negative comments.

I fell for this guy's scam a year ago, for a sublet in Boston (that turned out not to exist).  I live in Chicago, and when I reported this to the police, they just laughed and said "How are we supposed to track somebody in Boston?" even though the guy is in Chicago.  After getting scammed, you might think the legal system is on your side, but to be honest, the Chicago police are pretty ambivalent about actually helping and it's virtually impossible to track this guy down for any real court processing (the filing fees would be more than what you lose-- so just try to avoid the scam in the first place!)

A year ago, this guy used Bank of America and lived on Grace street in Chicago; Same phone number.  I actually met him in person to hand him the check (ha, huge mistake, though it was on a busy street corner), and the person I met was about 6 feet, white, 200lb+ with brown hair.  Definitely gay.  Late 20s to mid 30s.  His craigslist ad did NOT have pictures, and when contacted, he emailed two small jpgs (pics that you'd think someone just copied from an online website), one of a bedroom with a low bed (light wood, white sheets) and one of a living room (with a very small silver flatscreen TV and a couch facing).  Best way to avoid his scam?  Ask for more photos, look up the apartment on google maps and call the management company.  If there is no management company, or they don't know who this guy is, it's not just a "misunderstanding" but rather a scam.  Also, when confronted, this guy has been known to pretend that the condo/apt/whatever exists until the end, or have one of his alter egos call/contact you and say that he has fallen ill or has been in an accident. He also claimed that the negative reviews of him online were from someone who tried to back out at the last second and was just trying to make him look bad.  He's also pretty good at cyber-censoring honest reviews of him.  Kind of amazing how little morality runs through this guy's veins.

Anyway, live and let live.  This obviously still gets me seriously peeved.  Sincere sympathy if you've already been scammed, but hopefully others find this page before they fall for it!  Or, better it, get the police/FBI involved while this person is still trackable...

This is a test posting.  I am NOT affiliated with 800notes.com, but rather am just showing that anyone can post with "800notes.com" as their name.  This was shown on the next page by an awesome poster, but I wanted to move this point further up so nobody takes the above comment to be a real admin.