Realtors & Home Sellers Beware
As if home sellers didn’t have enough to worry about, now they have to beware of one more thing: scam artists who post their home as a rental on Craigslist.
A Brockton couple who was trying to sell their home had a few would-be tenants show up at their front door saying they saw their home listed for rent on Craigslist.
Someone had taken the for-sale listing from the couple’s Realtor’s Web site and pasted it into a Craigslist ad requesting that interested tenants send $950 to rent the house and that the keys would be mailed to them.
The homeowners were interviewed on WCVB-ABC Channel 5 last night and when asked what should be done to fraudster, the husband said, “His typing fingers should be cut off.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t a new scam. The Massachusetts Association of Realtors sent a warning to its members back in May. The group told Realtors that photos and listing information were being taken from Realtor.com and other online sources to trick renters.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I’m a RE broker that specializes in foreclosures and here is what happened to me and a few other agents. A buyer would place an cash offer on a multi-family home, provide all the required documentation, order title search, etc. Then weeks before closing, moved prospective tenants into the property, charged them rent and never close on the property. Then the seller has to start an eviction against unknown tenants, the tenants are furious most don’t speak english so communicating with them was next to impossible.