My Rental Property is being listed by someone else - SCAM Artist

[Baris R.]

I have received several call from prospective tenants informing me that my property is listed as for rent and when it is available. My existing tenants have informed me that people have come by knocking on the door and asking of the property is for rent. It appears that some scam artist has listed by property on Zillow and other sites. He also appears to have copies of my loan documents and using it as proof that he owns the property and one of the prospective tenants also sent me a copy of his driver's license showing my address on it. How do you protect my self and what does he have to gain by doing this? 

[Nathan Gesner]

These are extremely common and have been around for at least 12 years. Believe it or not, one scammer can earn thousands of dollars on each property by suckering people to send a security deposit to a P.O. box or wiring it to some account. They are rarely caught.

You can protect yourself and others by adding a watermark to all your marketing photos. If they can't use your photos, they'll find someone else to scam. There are websites and apps that allow you to do this for free.