Rently and FB Marketplace SCAM? Have you encountered this?

Question

My rental listings are being spoofed on FB marketplace and the scammers are posting them at significantly under the real price, advertising them as ABP and other "too good to be true" terms, and collecting first month's rent and security deposit before taking the listing down and disappearing.

The duped tenant inevitably reaches out to me (once they get off FB and look on Zillow and see me as the PM) and then we uncover the con they've fallen prey to.

The last person unpacked what happened with me in enough detail that I now see that the scammers seem to have been able to GRANT ACCESS to the home using the Rently lockbox system. My initial assumption was that they simply understood how the platform worked well enough to guide people through the steps and SEEM like the PM, but after reading the text transcripts of the last victim it seems far more sinister . . . the person was issuing lockbox codes.

Has anyone else seen or heard of this happening recently? Any version of this ring a bell?

Account Closed · Answer

Hey Will, I've heard quite a few of these scam stories on BP occurring on both FB Marketplace and Craigslist. If you search "scam" in the forums you'll find some similar stories. I tried to find the one I read sometime in the past few months from a tenant who was let into a property by a fake PM who somehow got access to the property, but I'm not easily finding it. I'm sorry this happened to you - it's pretty crazy the lengths that scammers will go to.

Will Fraser · Answer

Thanks, Damaso! These are good words to hear. I'm glad you ended up not being part of the scam when it happened to your ad! I'm taking these steps to button up some holes now, too!

Will Fraser · Answer

Thanks, Rachel! I completely agree that is is bananas to see the lengths, but after I did the math on this one scam and shared it with a few highly paid professionals in my area and saw their eyes pop it made more sense. When people emphasize money at the expense of other things a lot of things get off-tilt

Susannah Vila · Answer

I would guess that these scammers are just booking showings like any legit renter would and passing off their codes to unsuspecting actual renters. This is why we (at Caretaker) require identity checks in order to book a showing. People take selfies and upload their IDs and software makes sure they match and can check databases for falsified documents, etc. Rently's pin codes last for at least a day which would make this scam lot easier to manage. That's why access codes that last for just 30 or 60 minutes are much better for self showings - less time for bad actors to get anything done.

Corby Goade · Answer

That's terrible, sorry to hear that. We see those scams in our market all of the time- though I've never heard of a scammer actually gaining access to the lockbox. Any clue how that happened?We have completely abandoned advertising on CL and FB- the tenant leads are terrible and those sites are full of scammers. We still get scammers taking our watermarks off of our photos and posting them on CL and FB. We use Masterlock analog lockboxes and change our access codes. We also use Smartkey lock sets and rekey our properties regularly. It's not fullproof, but it helps. Finally- there are many property managers who offer "self showings" to prospective tenants. This is probably market specific, but it's fairly common in my market. The prospective tenant sends a copy of their driver's license and the property manager gives them the code to the lockbox so they can walk themselves through. Obviously a terrible idea, but investors have to thoroughly vet their property managers- especially newbies, there are so many questions you need to ask that you might not even know that you should ask. Sorry about going off on a tangent there.

Damaso Bautista · Answer

@Will FraserHappens all the time. Just make sure to check your property often because the second half of that scam is to get in there and change the locks. They give the key to the victim who moves in with the key and a lease that says they are the renters. Then you (the owner) are stuck evicting someone who Is in your property illegally. In their eyes they paid a deposit and first months rent to someone and got the keys and moved in.The first part happened to my add but I was lucky the victim called me to confirm their transaction with the realty company I was using to rent my property. I had to break the news to them that they were just scammed out their money. I was told to use watermarks on the photos so they can not be copied.Good luck!!!