Last time I wrote a piece about how renters are scammed out of money with fake rental listings. This time I’d like to talk about what landlords need to know to protect themselves as well. Here’s how the scam usually goes…
- Someone claiming to to be interested in the apartment contacts the landlord. (This is often made by email from someone claiming to be outside the US, often in the UK)
- The person offers to pay you up front via cashier’s check or money order. Not only that, the amount they offer you is significantly larger than the amount you requested.
- They ask for you to wire them the extra money (by a service such as Western Union or MoneyGram) back to them.
- If you do so, you will find out days later that the check or money order was a fraud and now your bank wants the money you withdrew to send to the scam artist back. You won’t be able to get any money back from the wire service you used.
Apparently this happens often enough that others have written about it. You can see 419: Rent Scam for a real-life example of this or what Colorado State University felt compelled to post on the subject.
As a general rule with internet transactions, only do business with people you can meet in person locally, avoid wire services such as Western Union or MoneyGram, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. NuShack is only a listing service. We do not act as an intermediary, broker, mediate or guarantee any transactions. If someone claims otherwise, they are lying or misinformed.
Rest assured, there are many quality tenants out there and scam artists only represent a handful. But being aware can save you problems in the future. Good luck and happy renting!
We had a home advertised for rent and it rented quickly so I deactivated the listing. A couple of days later I had a person from another state call the city clerk about the house inquiring who the owner was. She stated that she found the property on an internet rental site. She contact the listing person and the guy told her all the info about the home and that he was a pastor and he and his wife were going the Africa for a mission and that they wanted to rent out there home.
The only problem was is that the home isn’t theirs. They took pictures from the internet rental page of my home and ran it as their own and took application fees to process the forms for approval.
I wasn’t hurt in this fraud but the would be tenant could have lost her appliation fee and possible deposit.
I contacted the local sheriff and they said they really couldn’t do anything! So beware and be sure and do your research.
@Yvonne – I’m glad you managed to avoid problems and hoped no one else had any problems.
Your story shows how far internet scammers will go to get someone to wire them money and that we should always follow the simple rules for online classifieds: – don’t use wire services – cashiers checks and money orders can be fake and often are – and always do business with local people you can meet in person.