Beware of Add Highjackers

[Carlos Villanueva]

Just finished my 1st buy and hold rental property. Next step rent it out of course. I put it on craigslist , zillow, get a hold of realestate agent friends to spread the word over all there in house networking. We got a Google phone # with all our basic info and have the sign in the front yard. Everything is in place. A week into it I find out our add was high jacked buy some scammers telling people through emails that they are part of a ministry in Georgia and that they can't show the house but they can drive by and take a look at it! They had placed there own add using our pictures and description along with there        1-800 phone #. Heres the icing on the cake to this God awful nightmare, if you want to rent this quaint little home all you had to do was send the $500 deposit + 1st months rent and if possible any future months rent and then they would simply send you the keys in the mail. How Easy is that right?! Im on my third week into getting this puppy rented and during the holidays of course and its been one HELL of a challenge but I'm a hard headed son of a gun and I'm not giving up on my dream! Has anyone gone thru this before and if so what steps did you take? We did what little recon we could do to stop this but there is not much if anything you can do to fight back After the damage has been done.