[cielle]

I'm currently looking for fall housing right now and found a really great place. Fits all my needs, etc, pays utilities and its cheaps.

The thing is, they person wrote back to me with a form and asked me for a security deposit. I heard about alot of people being scammed this way (sent all private info, paid, never heard back from them). They had a legit website and loads of pictures of each room (like 20 pictures for each room), bathroom, kitchen, house, etc.
But still. I saw the ad on my school newspaper by the way, would that matter at all? There was also a part for previous tenants to write about their experiences and only one person wrote on it in 2008.

The only thing is, I'm currently out of the country! I can't go visit the place and see who owns the place. Also they think I'm going to scam them so (with so many 'i'm out of the country' scams lately) sometimes they don't even reply back to me. It's really frustrating.

What steps should I take to make sure I won't be scammed? Help me pleaseee!

I also asked a lease agreement and he sent it to me. It seems to be legit but. I never had to sign a lease by myself (I always signed with the school) so I'm trying not to lose too much money here T_T

EDIT: after I did some internet stalking, I saw that the address he told me to send the check to was an address to a business (it matches his name and all) so I guess it wouldn't be too hard to catch him even if it was a scam? Does this matter? I also realized that the housing address also leads to a business of the same name (although its OWNERSLASTNAME Electric) for some reason. I saw streetview and its the same house as he showed me in the picture.