Finding a place to rent can be extremely stressful. Not only is there the concern about how much you can afford and how big the place needs to be but, there is also the concern about where to look and who to trust.
Unfortunately, that stress is not unfounded and there are have been plenty of people who were taken by rental scams. The most important thing that you can do to protect yourself is to know what to look for.
Fake Credit Requests
This is probably the most common rental scam out there. The scam artist will place a fake ad for a rental property and then report that they need money to run a credit check.
When the unsuspecting renter sends their application and the fee over, the scam artist simply takes the money and runs.
Sketchy Real Estate Services
Another scam that people get wrapped up in is real estate offices that are not legitimate but will charge you a fee for providing a listing of all rentals in the area that fit your criteria.
Sometimes these lists can run up to $200 and a majority of the listings on them are not active or are not even real addresses.
Asking For Money Without Seeing The Place
If you have been looking around at various rental properties – you have probably come across a few listings that look great and you are interested.
What happens though is that people will call the number to ask about seeing the property and the scam artist will tell them that there are eight other people who are interested and that they can’t show the property to everyone because of the time investment.
They will persuade you to provide a deposit that ‘hold’ the property so that they can show it to you but, when you get to the address, the property either doesn’t exist or it is not what it looked like in the pictures and the scam artist is nowhere to be found.
A Price That Is Too Good To Be True
If a property owner publishes an ad about their rental a scammer can simply copy that ad and list their own version with a much lower rental amount.
People will notice that the ad first went up with a much higher price and assume that the price has gone down because the place hasn’t been rented. They will fight and claw to get the beautiful place at the lower price and will put down a deposit – only to learn that the listing with the lower price was a scam.
Make sure that you spend time to vet the listings and properties that you are interested in when looking for a rental. While you might feel a sense of urgency to snatch the right place when it finally comes up – it is important to do your due diligence and protect your money too.