he's saying "lots of people are probably running this scam" as an explanation his shitty experience with the shittiness that is the bay area housing market.
Ah, okay. After reading the author's Medium post, I wasn't as convinced the rest of HN that he's actually being scammed. Put another way, he has not convinced me that the issue doesn't lie in something unique to his situation or his credit report. Most of the "red flags" mentioned, as others have pointed out here, are not abnormal in (legitimate) apartment rental application processes, my own included.