Thread: Online Rental Ads Could be Phony F.B.I.

F.B.I. CONSUMER ALERT

Online Rental Ads Could be Phony

07/29/09

You can’t believe your good fortune—you find a rental home in a nice area through a Craigslist classified ad at an unbelievably low rate. The landlord—who had to leave the country and travel to Nigeria—asks that you wire him two months’ worth of rent. You arrive at the home on the agreed-upon date, but there’s just one small problem—the house is not actually for rent and its owners know nothing about your agreement.

This latest scam being perpetrated by Nigerian criminals located halfway around the world has been seen in a number of U.S. states, perhaps in response to the current housing market—with fewer people buying, more people are renting.

But it’s not really a new scam, just a variation of an old one. The so-called 419 scheme—named after the Nigerian penal code section under which this particular kind of fraud is prosecuted—has been around since the early 1980s. The common thread running through these kinds of scams? The victims are solicited by Nigerian criminals to transfer money out of the U.S. and into the criminals’ pockets…usually by being promised something in return. And these schemes are profitable, costing victims millions of dollars annually.

In South Carolina, the rental scam problem has become so prevalent that Columbia FBI Special Agent in Charge David Thomas recently issued a warning about it to homeowners and prospective renters, particularly in the Charleston, Columbia, and Hilton Head areas. The scam has also ensnared victims in Rhode Island, Illinois, Colorado, and California, among other states.

How exactly does the rental housing scam work? The criminals search websites that list homes for sale. They take the information in those ads—lock, stock, and barrel—and post it, with their own e-mail address, in an ad on Craigslist (without Craigslist’s consent or knowledge) under the housing rentals category. To sweeten the pot, the houses are almost always listed with below-market rental rates.

An interested party will contact the “homeownerâ€

I might add, tour the house before giving any info or money. No tour, no interest.

When I worked for a title company about 7 years ago, we were put on alert about a ring of crooks who were breaking into vacant houses, changing the locks, then SELLING the house. In most cases the title companies caught irregularities, but certainly not in all. Imagine coming home from vacation or from your summer home (yup that is the kind of neighborhood we are talking about) and finding ALL of your belongings gone and strangers had moved in. What is worse is they hold a DEED to your house.

I am sure it is no better on the other end. Saving and buying your dream home only to move in and the real owners show up. I am sure there will be more cases like this since the title work is no longer done locally but has been outsourced overseas.