Military families move regularly, sometimes every two to three years. So you may find yourself checking out new digs as you plan a move to another duty station. That’s when you could run into a rental scam, which can be hard to spot, but here are some clues.
Rental listing scams can unfold in a few ways. Scammers can steal legitimate rental listings for real places and pretend to be the landlord. Sometimes scammers use social media groups to post made-up listings for places that aren’t actually available to rent — and sometimes for place that don’t even exist. In either case, the scammer will rush you into paying an application fee, deposit, and/or first month’s rent, and promise to get you the keys right away — but instead, they’ll disappear. You’ll be left without your money and with no place to move into.
Take these steps to avoid losing time and money to a rental listing scam.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.
Reanie Walters July 31, 2024home across street for rent with lockbox and scammer listing home on Facebook for $1,000 less than rental company. SO: 1. Visit rental/ 2. County Accessor lists homeowner’s name by address/ 3. Rent thru a Realtor or Rental Company.
4. Notify police: of scammer’s ad, phone, name. 5. Put “Warning” note on door. Warn applicants
This just happened to a person in Bedford. They didn't realize it was a scam until they had sent them money and didn't get the keys as promised. She contacted me after the fact, and we discovered that a person in Indianapolis probably was the instigator of the scam. We also found out this person had over 10 felonies charged against them for similar acts. We are trying to educate our local population that this is happening and what to watch for. Your article is a good start.
