I HAVE NOT HAD ONE SINGLE PERSON REPLYING TO ME REGARDING MY ROOM RENTALS... EASYROOMATE WAS BETTER

My husband signed up on www.easyroommates.com and purchased the Premium Membership to help us find a room to rent until we sell our home out of state. Within a day he received an email from a potential landlord with details including the home address, pictures of the home, what is included, etc. They stated the rent amount and the refundable deposit amount. They then continued communicating via text and set up a date/time for us to go look at the home and room.

Next we got an email from *******@easyroommates.com; *******@usa.com with the subject line: "Action required! Confirm your viewing request on Easyroommate" which in the body of the email stated reservation requirements include a $500 deposit to take the listing off the website and it would be refundable, but had to be Bitcoin as the website is located in the UK. Victoria is listed as a customer service contact on the website. The person who initially emailed us is using someone else's name who is a property manager in San Jose (we are in Texas). I have notified her and found out someone else has reported the scam to her as well, so she can pursue as she chooses. I also was able to locate the REAL home owner by searching the county property tax database for the home address the scammer sent, and then googling his name and actually found his land line phone number. I left a message and he called me back and confirmed his home is not for rent and never has been. Bitcoin is untraceable; if we had paid our money would have been gone forever. I believe easyroommates.com at minimum is selling customer information (as there was no initial message to or from this person on the website and no Listing ID was in any communication) -- but I now believe the website is a complete scam or their website is seriously compromised.

Luckily something felt off and we were able to find all this information online and put the pieces together before we were scammed. But it's a slick scam preying on people in a specific situation, using real property addresses and people's names.

The FAQ's on the easyrooommate.com site actually list all of this, but I only found it by googling and couldn't access it on the site when logged in as a Premium Member.

The third link below is pretty much the identical format to what we received, just different details.
https://easyroommate-uk.helpscoutdocs.com/article/1151-online-scams-trends-and-techniques-updated
http://easyroommate-uk.helpscoutdocs.com/article/1146-report-a-scammer
https://s3.amazonaws.com/helpscout.net/docs/assets/5655d3c8c*******b26a5a72e/images/59a08b*******033a1c4d06/Bitcoin-scam.jpg

I also notified *******@easyroommate.com via email (who the website lists if you think there is a scam) but don't expect much of a response, if any.

See attached screenshot. I blacked out my husband's email address, the property address and the name of the landlord as they are legitimate people not associated with this.

They like to scam you. Will contact a lawyer.