New Real Estate Scam
Nigerian scammers find homes listed for sale on these public search sites, copy the pictures and listings verbatim, and then post the information onto Craigslist under available housing rentals, without the consent or knowledge of Craigslist, who has been notified.
After the posting is listed, unsuspecting individuals contact the poster, who is Nigerian, for more information on the “rental.” The Nigerian scammer will state that they had to leave the country very quickly to do missionary or contract work in Africa and were unable to rent their house before leaving, therefore they have to take care of this remotely. The “homeowner” sends the prospective renter an application and tells them to send them first and last month’s rent to the Nigerian scammer via Western Union. The prospective renter is further told If they “qualify,” they will send them the keys for their house. Once the money is wired to the scammer, they show up at the house, see the home is actually for sale, are unable to access the property, and their money is gone.
Joe in Australia • July 29, 2009 5:46 AM
There are similar scams for “vacation rentals”. I nearly found this out the hard way, when I was looking for accommodation in Manhattan. The ads have pictures of great-looking apartments at very reasonable prices and the people advertising them sound legitimate enough. I was lucky – I emailed a whole bunch of them and the similarities in the responses indicated that there were only a few people behind the ones I had contacted. But, if I hadn’t found this out, my family would have arrived in Manhattan to be greeted by some stranger with no idea why we were trying to enter his apartment.