I’m very thankful for all she has done…

I’m a Brazilian woman going after my dreams and professional development. I left my friends and family
to pursue my dream: to live in NY and work as an intern for an architectural firm. In order to pursue that
I had many obstacles to overcome. Getting to a new city, and have to speak English, with a different
culture e no one to help me, I felt proud of myself for being so brave and asked myself how could have
my mom let me do this? Everything was just perfect, I organized everything before I left the country,
I looked for apartments in the city and I found one on a very popular website that many people use:
Craigslist.

Bursting with joy, I left my life in Brazil to go to one of the most famous cities in the world: NYC. When
I got there I went to my apartment, which I have paid a deposit using two different accounts, as instructed.
My dream apartment!?

When I got there, the building was there, as I checked on Google Earth to make sure the address was real,
but there was no one there and all the pictures, as I analyzed them later, were fake, it was the end of my
dreams. I got desperate as I started work the next day and I didn’t even have a place to sleep. I ended up
going to a hotel and got an e-mail from the “owner” of the apartment apologizing that he couldn’t be there
to open the door for me and that he needed more money to send me the key, I realized at that moment that
it was a scam, I felt terrible. The next day I had to leave the hotel room and couldn’t go to work, as I had
to find a place to live. Staying in a hotel for a few months was getting too expensive and I needed to find
an apartment. I started to look for my Brazilian friends and see if anyone could help me, until I found a
friend that works in real estate, a company called Mark David & Company, I, right away, sent her an e-
mail and told her everything that had happened. I felt at home and protected by her, Flavia. The same day
we went out to look for apartment, the way I wanted and on my price range. We found one I liked and the
next day I moved. Thank God the money didn’t end up in bad hands.

But that’s not the end, I went back to Brazil after a few months, and upon my return, I got another offer
to work again in NYC. This time I already knew the city and how everything worked, or so I thought.
I didn’t contacted Flavia, because I didn’t want to pay for her broker fee and the apartment charges,
it would be too much. I decided to talk to people that lived there and also looked at the New York
Times, and once again, history repeated itself, and I was once more involved in a scam. Don’t ask me
how… I felt terrible, but this time it was even worse, even though I went to the police and had a private
investigator on the case, I couldn’t get my money back. I was asking myself, how could be people do
that? People always think that my country is shady and bad things happen and that in NY everything is
perfect and charming, how could people there behave in such way? But it does happen, even in the United
States there are bad things happening, sad, but true.

In the end, Flavia took me in; I stayed at her house because she knows how expensive it is to get a hotel in
the city. If it wasn’t for her, I’m not sure what would happen to me, I’m very thankful for all she has done
for me and next time I have to go to NY and find an apartment, I will gladly call her and make sure she
finds a place for me, and will also refer to friends that need her service.

Undersigned,

The Brazilian Girl