Rental Scams
Do you have rental properties in Campbell California? Are you planning tom marketing them online? Well, you might want to watch out for serious rental scams that are causing both tenants and landlords a lot of time and money.
For example, during marketing a Campbell rental, one potential tenants got the impression that we were scamming her when we mentioned the $20 fee that we require to process application. So, rental scams are everywhere and here at the Top 5 ways to prevent them on your Campbell rentals:
1) Online Applications: Lise your property on Cozy.com where you can collect and pre-screen applicants online. This way no one else can collect application fees. This also eliminate a huge risk of personal information being supplied to you as landlords which requires privacy policy.
2) Unlisted Address: Some of the scammers visit tenants on site and try to collect application fees. Trulia has a neat option where the Property Owners can list their rental while blocking the exact location of the property. But this solution is not bullet proof since Google Map API that Trulia uses can allow scammers to figure out the exact location of your rentals.
3)Google Alert: Set up Google Alerts with your property address, so Google can notify you if someone searches the address of your property. This would prevent the scammers from listing your property for rent on their own websites.
4) Internet Feed: If you are marketing your rentals on Craigslist, encourage the tenants to contact you through the Website. This way you can take measure to authenticate them and their interest in your property. And if you have set up links to Cozy, you can direct them to Cozy to collect their application and fee from your website.
5) Water Mark Photos: Protect your photos so they could not be used in other websites or publications. You can use VisalWatermarket.com , or Impression app on your iPhone to add water marks to your photos before you use them on your websites. This way, scammers won’t be able to use them if they copy them.
Finally we have pre-approved, pre-screened tenants interested in Campbell rentals. So, contact us if you have Silicon Valley rentals in San Jose, Saratoga, Campbell and Los Gatos.
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