We have a rental property that we manage for an out of town owner. I had posted it on the rental section of our local MLS and also in the local newspaper. I got a call yesterday from a man who saw it on craigslist. It was on there and the ad said the rent was about half of what we are actually requiring. The email that craigslist redirected to was not valid.
We got an email from another agent today who found one of her properties on a rental/application website. It had been listed without her permission, and ours was on there too.
Has anyone else experienced this?
I have heard of these scams, but to be hit with two in one week just blows me away!

I do not get why someone would do that. What a way to mess things up for you.

sounds like they are building a database of renters to prospect...and since they lower the rent...they probably get a lot of calls....

either that or just trying to make sure you cant rent your units...

either way...very sad

A "database of renters to prospect" or, worse, to SELL.

Looks like a scam, especially today when any task can be automated or outsourced for pennies...

Can you guess how the information was stripped?


-AP

I have clients who were hit with the scam. The imposters post a house that is for sale or rent on the MLS for a fraction of the going rate. They ask responders to fill out a short application and then wire or fedex a small deposit so they can send the keys. I flag them regularly on craigslist. My clients sent $500 which actually doesn't worry as much as the personal information they included on the application that they sent.

[quote=colemacj]I have clients who were hit with the scam. The imposters post a house that is for sale or rent on the MLS for a fraction of the going rate. They ask responders to fill out a short application and then wire or fedex a small deposit so they can send the keys. I flag them regularly on craigslist. My clients sent $500 which actually doesn't worry as much as the personal information they included on the application that they sent. [/quote]

That is scary. I have never heard or thought of this scam, amazing what people will do. I am sure the local authorities will do nothing because it is Craigslist and the internet being the almighty gray area. Thanks for the heads up...

There are multiple cons going on Craigslist. You need to do your due diligence and collect rent/security deposits in advance of handing over the keys.

[quote=colemacj]I have clients who were hit with the scam. The imposters post a house that is for sale or rent on the MLS for a fraction of the going rate. They ask responders to fill out a short application and then wire or fedex a small deposit so they can send the keys. I flag them regularly on craigslist. My clients sent $500 which actually doesn't worry as much as the personal information they included on the application that they sent. [/quote]

That's awful. There are so many scams on Craigslist these days that I avoid at all costs.

We manage over 1100 houses in Metro Atlanta and have seen several of our ads "pirated" off of Criagslist. Now we use www.rentalhomepros.com to post our ads and it can insert a watermark on the photo of each add saying "Go to (our website) to confirm ad" and that has worked very well to stop the ad pirating. We still have the occasional ad pirated but now the prospect contacts us to complain about our ad being priced lower on Craigslist than on our site. We are able to show them the ad they saw on Craigslist for the much lower price was not our ad and they just avoided a scam. It works well.

This is becoming a problem in our area as well. It's a scam and people have lost a lot of money. Renters be very careful, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

This is my experience as well with rental scams. The scam ads usually end up on Craigslist, and they advertise rent for a fraction of the price in hopes that some prospective tenant will send a cashiers check somewhere in exchange for keys to the property. The scam ad usually says something like how "I've recently moved out of the country, and I apologize that I cannot be there in person to show you the property or give you keys. But just send me your cashier check and then you can move in."

i was checking rents in an area and saw a house I recognized, it was an REO on MLS, but on craigslist listed for about half the going rate,,,I sent an e-mail and a couple of days later got an e-mail explaining the house was still available etc, and please send in the application, complete with social security number, etc etc,,,,I think these scammers must be pretty smart to come up with some of this stuff