Avoid Real Estate scams
While marketing our Los Gatos Stuido for rent, we discovered a Rental Scam in full view! It appears that a 3rd party company had stolen the content from our website and posted it on CraigsList and we discovered this scam by pure luck.And we had NOT posted the listing on Craiglist at ALL!
The call came in from a Relation Specialist form a National Real Estate brand that our claimed had seen our post on Craigs List. He was mentioning it that he’s using a 3rd party site that is displaying the original content from CraigsList. But we only posted our property on our own Real Estate website and our blog site here. What altered us to the Rental Scam was that the caller was calling the correct phone number for our office, but did NOT have the correct Address for the Los Gatos Studio.
So if you are looking for a rental property please verify the following:
1) Property Management Company: Find out if the listing is being marketed by a Property Management Company and call their main office to find out to inquire about that specific listing.
2) MLS Listings: Find out if the property that is being marketed to you as a rental, is NOT for sale! You can easily do this by using some of the public sites such as MLSListings.com or Trulia.com. If the property is listed, contact the Listing Agent to confirm if the property is available for rent.
3) No Upfront Fee: Don’t pay any upfront Application Fee, unless you have confirmed the availability and the validity of the Rental Listing.
4) Onsite Access: Some scammers use clever excuses to avoid showing the property to renal applicants. Insist on meeting the Property Manager on site where the rental property is located.
Finally, trust your instincts. If you are unable to trust the person you are dealing with at this early stage of your negotiations for a rental, then your relationship as a Tenant with them will eventually fail.
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