A mysterious conman is wanted by the NYPD after scamming nearly a dozen NYC tenants out of thousands of dollars with a bogus Hell’s Kitchen apartment rental.
Nicholas Fuelling, 43, allegedly showed at least nine different tenants a two-bed apartment at 334 W. 47th St., which he listed on Facebook for just $3,200 per month.
Lured by the price in a prime NYC neighborhood, renters like 24-year-old Miguel Márchese forked over the cash and signed a lease on Aug. 12 after touring the apartment and meeting Fuelling face-to-face, according to reports.
Nicholas Fuelling, 43, is wanted for allegedly scamming nearly a dozen people out of thousands with a false rental. NYPDMárchese told The Post he vetted Fuelling — he had an active social media presence, legitimate ID, a DocuSign lease and a story that seemed to add up — so he signed the paperwork and forked over $6,400 for first month’s rent and security deposit.
“I saw the post and it was for $3,200 for the whole apartment – a two bedroom, two bath,” Márchese, an aspiring model who recently moved to NYC, said in a phone interview.
“And I thought that was a really good deal…It seemed like a goldmine.”
But when Márchese made a Facebook post excitedly looking for a roommate, he got some bad news — somebody else had rented the apartment days earlier, and also paid Fuelling $6,400.
Miguel Márchese, 24, recently relocated to NYC to pursue modeling. He paid Fuelling $6,400 for the apartment. WABCAnd as they tried to make sense of what happened, more and more people, at least 11, reached out to say they’d also signed a lease and paid for the apartment.
“These victims, like day by day, they come forward, you know, people like also flying to New York City with nothing,” the scorned victim said.
“And then they’re like, ‘I thought I was moving to this place.’ And then people reach out to us because they show up to the apartment for the keys. It’s been a headache.”
When they confronted Fuelling about it he initially tried to say it was all a misunderstanding, claiming that he’d forgotten to cancel showings and making other vague excuses.
Not buying it, the group began recruiting their friends to reach out to Fuelling about the apartment.
“We kind of like played detective. Let’s just see if he forgot about it or something,” would-be tenant Maria Cordeiro told ABC7. “Three of our friends asked, ‘Hey is it still available?’ And he was like, ‘Yes do you wanna go see like today, tomorrow?'”
Once they felt that had enough evidence the group reported the scam to police, and a grand larceny investigation was launched with wanted posters for Fuelling’s arrest being issued this week.
The Hell’s Kitchen two-bed was listed for $3,200. And while it seemed like a steal, tenants thought they were safe. WABCBut Fuelling has vanished, and the NYPD told The Post no arrests or leads have been made in the case.
Council Member Erik Bottcher — whose district includes Hell’s Kitchen — has also been spreading Fuelling’s wanted poster around, because a friend of his even fell victim to the scam.
“People just have to be really, really vigilant when subletting an apartment. The problem here is he was a master of deception,” Bottcher told PIX 11.
Márchese and the other would-be tenants, meanwhile, have been left to pick up the pieces, with efforts to recover their stolen funds from Bank of America or Cash App unsuccessful.
Márchese said Cash App only returned $250 back to him after acknowledging the scam.
“This person went through deceptive means to defraud me,” Márchese said, explaining that he came to the city with just his suitcases on his own limited-dime and is trying to figure out his next move.
“He stole all my money and I have no money. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he added, noting he’s currently staying with a friend in a “small cupboard apartment” in the East Village while he rebounds financially.
“There’s been so many victims over the past 10 years and he cannot get away with this. He doesn’t care about f–cking people over and that some of us, we have no families. Some of us could have been homeless. I’m going to bring him to justice.”






