<prompt> Human: This post may be a lengthy read but I am really at a loss and need some insight on this issue. I didnt know where else to post this, so please bear with me.I have been planning on moving to Philly soon to pursue work and graduate school opportunities. For the past few weeks Ive been checking out apartments on Apartments.com to try to find an affordable, half decent rental. Most places didnt really wow me, that is until yesterday when I stumbled across a new listing that seemed too good to be true: a totally renovated, gorgeous 1 bedroom in a condo building on Pennsylvania Ave for only 500 a month!For me, this place looks like a God send. All utilities included in the rent, 2 parking spaces, a storage unit, washerdryer in-unit, and pet-friendly. So yesterday I contacted the property through Apartments.com. This morning I got an email from a guy named Michael, who is aparently the owner of the place. Turns out that he is renting it out through Airbnb, and is looking for someone to rent it for anywhere from 1 month to 5 years or more. He seems very polite and professional, a few grammar errors in his email but nothing too cringe-worthy. He explains to me that the rental process will be taken care of through Airbnb, and fills me in on the reservation process. He also attached a photo of his US passport for transparency. I accept his terms, and soon receive an email seemingly from Airbnb with the reservation instructions.So I read through the email and notice something strange: under the payment section it says payment method: iTunes. Of course this seems very weird, so I immediately asked him what was up.He explained: I wanted this payment method because it involves the ID and the physical presence of the future tenant when buying the iTunes card. A lot of properties are reserved this way now. A few months ago someone paid with a stolen credit card and I was unable to rent the apartment until the problem was solved.According to his previous emails, the iTunes payment is supposedly only for the security deposit, and after that is paid my monthly payments will be sent through Airbnb right to his bank account.I spent quite a while Googling and reading about different Airbnb scams and there was no mention of anything like this happening with them, but other non-Airbnb related articles did say that scammers will often urge people to pay with iTunes or other gift cards.Does anyone have any insight on this? This move will be a really huge deal for me and I really dont wanna get fucked over here.  <response>: No, no they do not. This is a SCAM. Good catch. 