Im a landlord and also maintenance for a pm company. First rule of renting is you get to see the place first, inside and out. No excuses. If there are, its a scam. Applications do cost money but maine has a hard cap on them at about 35 bucks so thats the second sign its a scam. Third sign is if you show up and they try to powerwalk you through the property, that means they have like 50 more people coming that day, all who are getting scammed out of cash.