Web sites like CraigsList, eBay and others are the easiest way to reach potential buyers or renters worldwide.

But when it comes to local real estate, KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy shows us the old fashioned way may still be best.

"We stuck out signs last Saturday, and within a few hours we were getting phone calls."

But Cheryl Wilson and Lisa Miller first tried to rent an Everett home by placing an ad on the wildly popular Internet trading site CraigsList, which, at first, appeared to be a good idea.

"Within probably four or five hours, we had two contacts from guys in England."

Both potential renters from overseas immediately sent cashier's checks, most likely forgeries. Both for way over what the women were asking.

"Within the first couple of hours, the first guy, Paul Smith, says, 'Oh wait. my dad by accident sent you too much money, and I need about three thousand back for airfare so I can get to the United States,'" said Cheryl Wilson. "He was, like, 'I need to get this money wired by Western Union as quickly as possible.'"

That's when Wilson and Miller knew they were being scammed.

And when they asked the potential renters to fill out a rental application that included employment history and income, the men in England started the last-ditch hard-press -- and started harassing them by phone.

"Started out just a couple of phone calls a day. Eventually, by day three, I was getting about 10 to 12 calls a day. We did verify the area code and it was coming out of the U.K., from England," said Miller.

"You could hear in his voice he was getting very anxious, yeah, and was kind of raising his voice a little bit, wanting to know when we were going to cash the check."

The two women never did cash the most likely phony checks and never wired the difference to England, as the men wanted.

They avoided this common on-line crime, often called a Nigerian scam.

And say they will stick with more low-tech marketing.

"Stick with the rent signs out on the street, we must have gotten 30 calls in the last week. We got this one rented and we got the other one rented because of the signs in the street. So the old fashioned methods, I think, are safer," Wilson said.

The FBI says Nigerian scams are common. But the real estate angle is a new twist.

Meanwhile, because of such scams, Western Union is training its employees to recognize and avoid them when a customer comes in, ready to wire money to a probable con artist.