[bsimpson]

My lease is with "Foreign Investor c/o Local Broker."

I think the reason it was listed as a "no fee" apartment is because the brokerage is the de facto landlady.

As the person who told me about this grift explained, this is not an uncommon relationship.

[harmmonica]

I tried to confirm your assertion about this grift but someone downvoted my previous comment saying as much. Just to reiterate: you’re right. This a real, relatively normal situation in NYC.