Do you trust fill in the blank landlord reference letters?

[Tricia O'Brien]

Would you be suspicious of this  being a fake reference? I have my vacant rental home  listed on Avail.co. When a tenant completes an application, their  system automatically emails a 5 question form to  those people they listed as references.  I have one reference I am trying to follow up with by phone , but the reference won't call me back.  She gave the tenant applicants a good reference on the form. However I am a little concerned this may be a fake reference.  

This home is one they had lived at 3 years and just vacated about a month ago.  But the applicant has nothing on their bank statement indicating a rent payment on the first of their last month. The applicants say they always paid rent in cash,  the rent receipts are in a box in storage, would take awhile to find.  ..

Would you insist on talking to the most recent landlord by phone? 

Or would you be content with the fact that they meet my income requirements and have no evictions on the credit/ background / eviction check with TransUnion?

It is a nice well maintained house in a class D neighborhood.

How many people make a monthly rent payment of $2300 in cash??? 

[Nathan Gesner]

When I check a Landlord reference, I follow this process:

1. Verify their rental address shows on their credit check;

2. Look up the property owner of that address to confirm it matches their Landlord name;

3. Try to find the Landlord's phone number online to see if it matches what the Tenant provided me. Just a free search of someone's phone number will usually turn up a name or address, even if part of the information is masked.