According to a police report, one victim, Fifi Ngin, had paid Vaghar $1,200 to rent her apartment for $400 a month.

But when Ngin asked for her money back after Vaghar terminated the contract, Vaghar sent her a check for $1,500—$300 more than she was owed.

However, as most victims said was also the case for them, when Ngin went to cash the $1,500 check, she was informed that it drew from a closed bank account.

Several victims also told The Crimson that Vaghar continued to make up stories and promise them reimbursements even after the Jan. 12 article.

Kevin S. Mbugua, a student at Berklee College of Music, said that he was still corresponding with Vaghar in an attempt to recover the $800 she owed him weeks after the article was published, until he Googled her name and found the Crimson article and related weblog postings.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, said that plots like the one Vaghar is accused of are not very common on his site but that he often gets personally involved when similar situations arise.

“This is an old scam, not very common on our site, maybe our active participation is the reason,” Newmark wrote in an e-mail.

While the exact structure of the alleged scam could not be confirmed, interviews suggested that most of the earlier victims of the plot, who first responded to the posting in July and planned to move in at the end of the summer, have been paid back, while many of the later victims have yet to be repaid in full, and some have not yet received any of their money.

But many of the people involved in her case also said they were confused about how Vaghar expected to get away with her plot. She used real information about her address and phone number—even in some cases providing her social security number—and had friends in common with some of her victims.

“It’s almost like Linda doesn’t have a fear about anything,” said Mbugua. “She didn’t have a fear about getting caught, used her real name, her picture’s on thefacebook.com. It doesn’t look like she tried to protect herself at all.”

—Staff writer Reed B. Rayman can be reached at rrayman@fas.harvard.edu.