Facebook Marketplace reposting scam?

[Jonathan Yip]

This is something new to me... My house flip has been on the market for a new weeks now. My wife was browsing the local Facebook Marketplace page and found our exact house, using our exact photos, listed for rent by some random guy in the Philippines!

We dug around further and found a couple more postings of the same thing! One guy even posted a screenshot of ANOTHER guy's repost, claimed it was a scam, and said to contact HIM instead!

I found this totally bizarre as I can't imagine any reason for doing this, other than trying to line up a renter before buying the property. If so, it doesn't seem like a very good strategy.

Has anyone ever seen this before? I'm genuinely puzzled as to what the possible endgame could be...

[Peter MacKercher]

@Jonathan Yip Whenever I've heard about these sorts of fake listing scams the goal is to get an application fee or, better yet, a deposit, and then the scammer disappears. They might have some way of asking for a payments online that they'd just keep.

I think your best bet, if you haven't already, is to report the post and see if Facebook can ban the IP address (not just the login/email).

[Jay Hinrichs]

simple criminal intent and activity..

real estate is now the new Nigerian prince scam .... in everything from fake landlords to fake lenders.

and facebook is horrid I would never ever in a thousand years do business on facebook ( in the real estate space) simply would not trust anyone who posted on facebook.. to me its bush league at best and at worst is full of criminals looking to scam people.

[Don Petrasek]

had one of these people copy a Zillow rental ad including pics and post it on Craigslist......at $150/month less than I had it listed for.   Took almost two weeks for me to get Craigslist to take it down.  

Had a couple people contact me who had responded to the fake ad and showed me the responses + fake leases they got (along with request for security deposit).  The English was ridiculously bad and the lease appeared to be from the UK.....in spite of that the two people that approached me said they almost fell for it.  His story was that this was his sick aunt's property and he was trying to handle it for her from out of state.  

I've heard stories from other landlords of people showing up at their house with a moving truck after paying deposit to a scammer.....or even in the house when they get there- scammer makes up story about lost keys and just tells them to get in any way they can.

Lesson I learned: put my ads everywhere - I think they are way less likely to do this on a site that's already got the legit ad. 

I did actually contact Cleveland PD about the situation....their response was nothing they could do until a crime was actually committed & even then probably no way they could find the scammer.  Also said Craiglist no longer accepted their calls.....

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Jonathan Yip:

This is something new to me... My house flip has been on the market for a new weeks now. My wife was browsing the local Facebook Marketplace page and found our exact house, using our exact photos, listed for rent by some random guy in the Philippines!

We dug around further and found a couple more postings of the same thing! One guy even posted a screenshot of ANOTHER guy's repost, claimed it was a scam, and said to contact HIM instead!

I found this totally bizarre as I can't imagine any reason for doing this, other than trying to line up a renter before buying the property. If so, it doesn't seem like a very good strategy.

Has anyone ever seen this before? I'm genuinely puzzled as to what the possible endgame could be...

 This is a classic scam. Very popular on Craigslist. Just report the post to Facebook. Won't be the last time this happens.

[Andrew Johnson]

Jonathan Yip So just guessing one scam scenario. I post the “For Rent” for a real property that someone can drive by. It will likely be unoccupied as it’s a flip. I get Facebook clicks and send them an application and request for a $35 application fee. Price it below market so you get a ton of applications and you dupe 20 people out of $35 each. You never do the background check so *poof* there’s your “profit”.

[Will Barnard]

Originally posted by @Andrew Johnson:

Jonathan Yip So just guessing one scam scenario. I post the “For Rent” for a real property that someone can drive by. It will likely be unoccupied as it’s a flip. I get Facebook clicks and send them an application and request for a $35 application fee. Price it below market so you get a ton of applications and you dupe 20 people out of $35 each. You never do the background check so *poof* there’s your “profit”.

 That’s only part of this typical scam. The biggest part and intent is to get multiple parties to agree to sign a fake lease and place first and last month’s payment to the scammer. They even go as far as bringing a locksmith, breaking in and changing the lock so they can show the house to the potential tenants who become the victims of the scam and they run away with all the cash. 

Very common in the hot New York market as well to pull this off.

Report it to the authorities (including the FBI), demand Facebook, Craig’s list, etc to pull down the fake ads, and take every precaution to secure your home. Cameras, “the Ring”, lights on timers, etc are all means to help secure your home. You will also want to visit your property everyday if possible or have someone do it for you.

[Jen R.]

We had this happen to a rental listing as well, but on Craigslist. Consequently, I now watermark the center of my listing pics with our business name and phone number, and we haven’t had any problems since.

[Lee Ripma]

This is a good reminder to watermark photos used on FB. I actually use FB marketplace to advertise rentals and it has worked really well for getting tenants. There are just so many eyeballs on FB.

[Jonathan Yip]

To follow up on this - today my agent showed the property to this guy who loved the house. Turns out he was under the impression that it was a "rent to buy" deal with an impossibly low rent. He claimed he had spoken to me (he knew my first and last name) on the phone and I had already sent him all the paperwork! Exactly what you guys were saying.

Moral of the story - scammers suck I guess.

[Rafael Molinaro]

This just happened to me.  Saw a post on Facebook, a guy asking for help posting rentals on Facebook and for that, he would pay $500 week.  Then I googled his “offer” and came here lol.  I knew it was a scam, was not sure who was the target, myself or future renter.  Of course I did not post anything for them but thx for this post.  BiggerPockets rock.  

[Bonnie Low]

Yes, unfortunately we've seen this and it IS a scam! My son was trying to rent a place in Boise at the start of the pandemic when the dorms shut down at Boise State. Apartment complexes stopped offering showings and accepting new tenants so he was having a terrible time finding some place to live. Then a duplex popped up in Craig's list. It was reasonably priced and as soon as he texted them to set up a showing, they said 'you can have the property! No credit report required, you don't have to pay an application fee.' Well, being just 19 he has no credit report so of course this really appealed to him and the photos looked great. But we thought it odd that every single text response included the phrase 'may God bless you.' There's nothing wrong with that, but it came back so rapidly and consistently that it seemed automated, and that made it feel phony. This set off our spidey sense that something may be off.  My brother lives in Boise so I asked him to look at the property with my son so he wouldn't be taken advantage of. The owner claimed to be in New York so they couldn't make it out there to show the property, but suggested he just go by and peek in the windows. So he did. The place looked the same as the photos - and the other half of the duplex was occupied. They even sent him a rental contract. After texting the owner again to ask when he could move in they told him to just send the first month's rent by Venmo and they'd "have someone meet him there with the keys." Luckily, he wasn't that naive and didn't send them any money. When he texted the "owner" again, they started to get pushy when he said he'd need to see the inside first and would only exchange cash for keys in person. We talked about it and agreed it was all just too fishy. So being a product of the digital age, my son went to work sleuthing. The "owner's" mailing address they used on the rental agreement that was supposedly in the Bronx didn't exist. The phone number they were using had a Fresno, CA area code and that same street address actually DID exist in Fresno. Hmmm. Then he went to the county Assessor's website and looked up the registered owner of the duplex. It was someone in Boise! So he contacted that person and asked if they were renting out their duplex through this other person. They said no, they absolutely were not and in fact already had a tenant due to move in. So he then contact the Boise PD to report the scam. We don't know what the outcome was, but clearly they were just trying to use a rental advertisement to lure people into sending a cash deposit and then would've disappeared with his money. I'm guessing this kind of thing goes on all the time. If you're the owner and have this happening with your property, I'd report it to the PD just so there's a record that you're not involved in it in any way.

[Jordan Hiebert]

same thing just happened to me yesterday!!! the guy apparently listed our rental with our description and our pics and was asking people to drive by and look at it, but he was "out of town for a surgery" so he couldn't show the inside. then asking for an application fee to "hold the house" we reported it to the police and they said some scammer got some couple to cashapp him $2,000 on a different rental for the 1st/last month. also, the police said that the scammer usually reaches out to the realtor to try to get an access code for a key lock box or will break in the back and tell his "potential clients" to go in the back and check it out. crazy what people try to do to scam someone these days.