thegodfatherdany wrote I was scammed when I moved to Kingston for graduate studies. Sent around 1600$ CAD from Lebanon to the owner and turned out that it was a scam.
Never do that, never send money to individuals that you don't know well.
Someone tried to pull the "western union" scam on me. They posted an awesome and cheap (too good to be true) apartment on craigslist. But they needed "proof that I was serious" and that was in the form of a questionnaire that I had to fill, and I had to "post money to myself" through western union and send them a photo of the receipt to "prove that I have the money".
The way this works is they would show up at western union with all the info they gathered, pretend to be me, and receive the money that I "transferred to myself".
If you have a video call with someone, then you will be able to directly connect to their IP (and find out where they live) and see their face. Most scammers will find an excuse when you try to have a video call or even voice chat with them ("my camera is broken", etc.)
By the way, craigslist seems to be a good option for finding cheaper stays, in Montreal at least.