Monday, November 9, 2009

The Craigslist Tenant Scam - Watch Out!

If you are a prospective tenant and you are looking on craigslist.org for a rental property, be careful.  Never send money out of state, or especially out of country, to anyone.

The scam is that you are paying "missionaries in Africa" a reduced rent because they don't need all the money.  Because you think it's such a great deal, you forget to check the basics, and send them a deposit, or deposit and first month's rent.  But, the people in Africa are not the owners, just scammers.  It's easy to check public records to see who is the owner of a property.  Better yet, do business with us, or any other NARPM member company.

We watermark all our photos on every website.  Any ad by CityScape Real Estate, LLC has our website on it.  That reduces the scammer problem big time.  However, it doesn't stop it.  We had a scammer advertise one of our properties using photos taken from some other property.  Just be careful on responding to any ad that is not being run by a property management company.

In summary, do not send money out of state, or out of country for any rental property.  If the owner does not have a property manager here in the Denver Metro Area, you are probably being scammed.  At best, you are renting from an absentee owner with limited contact.  What will you do when the furnace quits on a cold day, or the hot water heater quits?

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