House Rental Scam

Just want to make people aware of a house rental scam going on. Maybe this is old news but I haven’t been in the rental game for a long time and ran into a scam on my first application. I found this posting on Craigslist which I know you have to be cautious about anyways (isn’t the primary place I’m hunting for rentals) but they seemed like owners renting direct to tenants, no middleman. Also looked up the property on the King County parcel viewer and confirmed that the name of the house owner was the same name as the person emailing with me. Got all the way through the process and down to the lease agreement. Paid $40 processing fee. I noticed in the agreement they didn’t include any contact information for themselves, like a mailing address. They tried to assure me that we didn’t need to add that and that I would just be paying rent through Apple Pay so no problem just sign it so we can take the property off the market and secure your rental after you pay the 1st months and deposit. Something smelled funky so I insisted that I needed their contact information so I could just verify who I was doing business with. They stopped contacting me back. I went to the house and knocked on the door and sure enough the real owners had no idea that someone was claiming to be them and trying to rent their house out. Luckily I am only out $40. Be careful out there!