Another rental scam

Our Eagle Crest rental is being scammed again. This time a guy is advertising it for $750 per month! (It’s actually for rent for more than twice that). He’s telling people that he’s unexpectedly out of town on a family emergency and to just look in the windows!

The scammer’s plan is to then have them send him a deposit to hold the house for them. If multiple people fall for it, he could make a lot of easy money. And then I’ll have to deal with the fall-out when they find out they haven’t actually rented this house.

The reason I know what he’s telling them is two different people have come by in just the half-hour I’ve been here. They feel dumb when they find out, because they sort of figured the price was too good to be true.

There’s not much I can do about it. I have contacted the police, and left a message on the answering machine for the “telephone reporting line” and someone is supposed to be calling back. But I know they can’t really do anything about petty internet fraud. I’ve also flagged the ad and contacted craigslist requesting that they take it down. But of course I can’t take it down myself.

I also happened to have paper, pen, and painter’s tape with me, so I just made  dorky, handwritten signs and taped them to the windows and doors. Already I saw one person look at a sign and leave. I just hope the signs doesn’t scare off my legitimate renters!

I’m missing the days when I just had a regular job to go to.

Update: I put my phone number on my improvised signs on the house, and now people keep calling me. They are so sad when they see my sign on the door and it’s way more rent than they’d hoped. So they call just to double check, and they lament for awhile. They’ve all been nice about it. Just very disappointed.

So far I haven’t heard of anyone who actually sent money. I hope no one does.

Plus now I have to figure out how to prove it’s my house to prospective tenants. I have my settlement statement, but I don’t really want to be showing everyone how much I paid for it. I also have a warranty deed but it only includes the legal description, not the address. And the response I got from the title company was, “We don’t insure addresses, only legal descriptions.” Great. And the on-line assessor’s records still show the previous owner. I have no idea how often those are updated. Maybe soon I’ll get a utility bill for the house in my name.