Man, I'm blown away by the brilliant sleuthing that has unfolded in this thread. bradlyhale: I'm sorry you had to go through the same thing. I got the same handwritten receipt in lieu of a legit contract for the apartment, which should have alarmed me but didn't at the time. And yes, you got the correct phone number for the apartment and I'm sure you did speak to the mother.
I had been planning on calling the apartment over the next few days, as I think a new tenant will be moving in shortly, if they haven't already. Throughout my last two or so weeks in the apartment, Valeria regularly brought prospective tenants to see the place. We need to make sure no one else gets victimized by these crooks. Also, on more than one occasion she brought real estate agents to check the apartment out also in anticipation of a possible sale of the unit, I was told.
I'm a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information you guys have thrown out there, but at this point it's clear that more is at stake here than my measly $200 deposit. I think I gave Valeria plenty of chances to make this right by just returning my money, but she really deserves everything coming to her now. I hope those $200 were worth it. As advised in this forum, I'll report her immediately to the AFIP, Buenos Aires City Government´s Tourist Consumer´s Defense and the tourist police, the latter of which was recommend on the
Trip Advisor thread I posted on the same subject.
And for the record, Valeria looks nowhere near as good as she does in those photos. Handsome maybe, but I certainly wouldn't turn my head when she passes by. Those photos must be 'shopped or just plain old.