San Francisco Studio Simulacra
Nothing's real any more.
You guys are going to get tired of seeing this, but we are once again back to Simulacra & Simulation. Let’s recall how unreality progresses.
Late last week I went with a friend to check out a short term studio rental in San Francisco proper. If it had been real he’d have rented it, but we encountered a phase three simulacra, and he kept his money.
Attention Conservation Notice:
Grifters annoy tf out of me, and they’re fair game for any sort of payback one can envision. Since their motivation is economic, they will flee, rather than fighting back. This means they are an opportunity to test things on targets that are hardened, but NOT reactive. If you’re not going to do hand to hand work, maybe just skim this.
Dragon Gate:
The goal is housing on the other side of the bridge, as was mentioned in East Bay Craigslist Scammer, but there was an interesting offering a stone’s throw from Chinatown’s Dragon Gate. We both had other reasons to visit this area and it’s just a few blocks from a BART stop, so off we went.
The space was an SRO - a Single Room Occupancy, which is quite normal in that part of the city, but they’re not all grim Tenderloin flophouses. This one had a view of one of the four star hotels in the area.
The successive warning signs were:
Every building in the area had a management number listed except this one.
Would-be landlord’s back story had some odd gaps.
Price and duration of lease changed during the conversation.
We knew the on site manager’s name, scammer did not.
So this one was a trifle tricky … and we gained initiative by showing up an hour early, hanging around the entrance, and buttonholing an actual resident entering the building. That got the name of the management company and a call to them got the name of the on site manager.
As the conversation progressed there were things that were obviously strange, but every time the “landlord” would stop to check my reaction, I’d nod in agreement, and once I helped smooth things over. It takes a certain sort of personality to engage in theft by deception in person, most normal humans are deeply uncomfortable taking advantage of someone, but psychopaths tend to have charm and easy grace about them. This is their blessing, but it’s also a curse, because there is an addict’s need to deceive others that’s part of psychopathology. So all you have to do is give them a little room to lie … then a little more … and they’ll do the rest.
The end of the conversation was funny. I brought up the management company name, which elicited a tiny startle response, and he didn’t know the gender of the on site manager. I used the proper surname for the person, but a gender neutral first name that was close to the actual name. This also required a bit of “nod and agree” for us to get past it.
So now there’s an email with single page “rental application” that lacks any of the boilerplate one finds on such documents in California, but it certainly had the right blanks to facilitate an identity theft. The response was a request for more information from the “landlord” himself, which is going to net no response at all.
Conclusion:
Unlike East Bay Craigslist Scammer, this one does not offer me a chance to do anything new in terms of technology. We pursued it because it looked legit on the surface, and there’s another thing we both enjoy that’s right in that neighborhood.
We’ll play it through, but I think he already knows we’re on to him. Once I’m 100% sure this is not a misunderstanding, I’ll contact the management company, find whomever does their security work, and share the whole file. This guy has access to the building and that’s a definite problem for them. Maybe we can actually get him arrested, but I’m not holding my breath.
But an MO, a description, a phone number, and an email are a starting point for SFPD. Maybe there will be some justice done on this one, gonna have to just wait and see.