Many of us have heard the horror stories, and may have even
had first-hand interaction with a tricky scammer online- I recently had a
nightmare scenario unfold right in our own area- Lyndhurst!
A gorgeous ranch for sale in Lyndhurst began generating an
unusual amount of phone calls one Tuesday morning- Which being in the
profession that I am, I was quick to answer each and every one! At first I was slightly confused, each call
inquiring about a rental in Lyndhurst, that didn’t exist! Let me clarify, I immediately recognized the
home description and street address- however this was a home
for sale, not rent!
After a little bit of research on my part- it turns out that
these individuals had found an ad on Craigslist, for a rental home- upon
driving to the house to check it out, they saw my Keller Williams sign in the
front yard and decided to call me direct!
In the hours following I was able to decipher the chain of
events that had unfolded:
My live listing, for a home in Lyndhurst, had been pirated-
the scammers had taken the EXACT description and my photos of the home, posted
them on Craigslist as a rental- with an absurdly low monthly rate- and a fake
story about being out of the country and needing a wire transfer to rent their
home! The end goal is that someone would
wire the funds for the deposit/first months’ rent- and the scammers would
collect that money from as many people as possible, leaving all of those
innocent individuals with no rental and no money!
In the coming blogs, we are going to provide as much
information as possible to assist in identifying, preventing and reporting
these fraudulent listings- Situations like this effect everyone negatively,
REALTORS, home buyers, renters, and the home sellers- it is important that we
each play our part in prevention.
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