3 Red Flags 🚩🚩🚩 for rental scams

Описание: Unfortunately, I occasionally get calls on my website asking if a specific unit is for rent in one of the communities featured on my website http://www.MidRiseLiving.com ... When its a scam, it's never an MLS-syndicated property listed by a Realtor, and its usually an ad showing on one of the many apartment-syndicated websites online.

When the scammer uses one of the many syndication websites out there, it goes out to hundreds of rental sites that get the feed. Some will use old listing photos and some will use photos that aren't of the actual address.

The person calling will usually tell me they wired money on one of the unprotected services like a wire transfer. Payment services like PayPal and credit cards like VISA, Mastercard, and American Express have fraud protection, so scammers usually won't accept those.

Here are (3) red flags to look out for:
1. Not being able to view the property and being asked to wire a large payment like security deposit and first month's rent.While credit and application fees are not uncommon, they are usually $50 or less and paid to directly to a 3rd party like rentspree or mysmartmove where they accept one of the protected payment methods.
2. The landlord or person running the ad wants to communicate by email only. If you do get someone on the phone ask for their name and verify they are the owner. You can call me and I can check title records.
3. A suspiciously low rent amount.