Rental Scams
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome back to Fraud Friday!
Today, we are looking at Rental Scams! A lot of people think that Craigslist holds many great opportunities for low-cost rental properties. Before you begin your search or sign on the dotted line, be aware that there are many unscrupulous people using Craigslist, posing as rental agents, just to get your personal and financial information. The number of fake rental scams on Craigslist and other sites continue to grow, with new aliases appearing daily. But while the names may change, the methods are always the same. Don’t believe these ads appear only on Craigslist. They could show up anywhere! Usually on local sites like Craigslist, scammers will steal photos from legitimate real estate listings and list them for rent at or below market rate. They will generally be hesitant to tell you the address of the property for "safety reasons," and you will not be able to see the unit. They will then ask you to pay them a deposit and they claim they will ship you the keys. In reality, your money is gone, and you will have no recourse.
What to look for: If your seller is insisting on you not seeing the property, it is a scam. You should never pay for a property that you cannot go and see.
The Better Business Bureau advises to be on the lookout for the following for avoiding Craigslist apartment rental scams:
-The email addresses they use usually are from yahoo, ymail, rocketmail, fastermail, live, hotmail and gmail, and they also post ads under anonymous craigslist addresses. They frequently change their aliases.
-The deal sounds too good to be true. Scammers will often list a rental for a very low price to lure in victims. Find out how comparable listings are priced, and if the rental comes in suspiciously low, walk away.
-They use photos stolen from other property advertisements or from home furnishing catalogues or hotel websites.
-They use fake names, often stolen from Facebook profiles or networking sites. Often, they assume the identities of previous victims.
-What they all have in common is that sooner or later you get a request to transfer funds via Western Union, Moneygram or some other wire service.
-Never under any circumstances, wire money at the request of any prospective “landlord” via Western Union, Money Gram or any other wire service. Even if they tell you to wire the funds to a friend or relative’s name “to be safe,” it’s a trap!
-Always check bbb.org to see if the “company” has any complaints.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/arti.../what-do-if-you-were-scammed
Come back next week for another type of scam!