Scam that sparked my project

Back in 2016, I was living in Kyiv with a friend and work colleague. We were renting a two-room apartment in Obolon district. Later, my girlfriend moved in, and the space quickly became too cramped. My desire to find a new place grew so strong that I dove into the search for a new home for us. Unfortunately, my eagerness blinded me, and I went for what appeared to be a great apartment based on the very first listing I saw.

I arrived at the office, signed the contract, paid the money, and was given the address where the owner was supposed to meet me and hand over the keys. As you might have guessed, no one met me there, and that’s when I realized I had been scammed. I reported the incident to the police, but they told me that I had signed an “information contract” (in other words, I had been sold information about a non-existent property).

Disappointed, I went back home and continued my search. Being a programmer, I soon realized that constantly refreshing the page was not a viable option, so I decided to automate the process.

The problem was, by the time I found an appealing listing, it had already been booked. I was spending hours searching without any luck. Within an hour, I wrote a small script in Go that sent real-time notifications to my Telegram account. As soon as a new listing was published, I received a notification. Thrilled with my accomplishment, my girlfriend (now my wife) and I went out for a walk. We hadn’t even reached the metro station when I got a notification about a new apartment just nearby. I called the owner, and within 5 minutes, we were at the property. We liked it, and we rented the apartment.

After that, I realized that this script has real potential. In just a few more hours, I developed a small Telegram bot that searches for listings based on specified criteria. Today, thousands of users rely on it, and the many positive reviews motivate me to continue building interesting and useful tools. One particularly memorable story involves a user who had his laptop stolen. He tracked down the thief using the bot and even set up an ambush with the police (he even donated $5 to me at the time!).

Nowadays, businesses and professionals — especially those searching for antiques, real estate, and tech (mostly Apple products) — frequently use the bot.

I wish all of you that a negative story will turn into a successful project!