Rental scam on my property

[Freddy C.]

Well, I’ve had my first taste of a scam being run on my (1st ) rental. Our agent put it on the market in mid-February 2011 and we signed a rental agreement with tenants just last week. Apparently, someone has been and is still posing as me and is listing our property on at least 7 different websites. It is interesting because the bad guys somehow lifted the walk-thru pictures of our property from our legitimate listing on the local MLS. Anyway, the bad guys are posing as me and saying “I†just moved to London w/ my family and “we†did not want to sell the house due to the economy and would like to rent it out for (the ridiculously low price of) $800. Of course, “I†have the keys with me in London, as well as “all the necessary housing document.â€

All someone needs to do is send $900 for the security deposit, and after the money is received the keys to the house will be mailed.

Wow. My realtor forwarded an email chain between the scammer and this poor lady who was interested in the property. She ultimately got wise to what was happening and decided to contact my agent.

My wife googled the property address yesterday and that is how we discovered all the bogus listings. She of course is working with the websites to have all the bogus listings removed.

I guess this is just part of the business, huh? I was wondering if we did something wrong but I guess we were just “lucky†and the bad guys just randomly picked our house.

[Jon Klaus]

I would expect that the prospective tenant would go to the house and look in the windows, etc. Make sure you have a sign at the house with your contact info.