<prompt> Human: Hi, so in the past two months I have been arranging to find a place for my mother to stay for 3 months near my collegeshes a professor and she will be on sabbatical. I found a place on a blog that the residential office by a local resident. After a few emails and having found the accommodations quite good for the price, we digitally signed a lease agreement. He said he was in Hawaii temporarily for work but he could make a trip back to show me his apartment sometime in early September. So I initially paid a deposit and one months stay via PayPal. This is where it gets REALLY suspicious. Later, he requests for the last two months to be paid for as well because he needs to purchase insurance for the apartment. I agree, but this time he refers me to a different PayPal account in which the transfer has to be made from US Dollars to Euros. I questioned if this was correct and he said yes. Also, the day before it was planned for him to show me the apartment, he said he couldnt make it but his wife would. I agreed, however the next day his wife didnt show up either. 2 hours after the appointment time, he said that his wife had had an accident on the way to the airport that morning and he would mail the key to me instead. From then on, he was extremely unresponsive and would occasionally say he would mail the key as soon as possible. He has not responded since last Thursday. Should I contact a lawyer in this area? In hindsight, I trusted this person way too much but I assumed he was legitimate because we had signed a lease agreement and I tracked the IP address of his emails and they were from Hawaii. What should I do? My mother is planning to move in in less than 2 weeks and Im not sure what to do.  <response>: Start over. Scammed. Plain as day. Sorry OP 