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Landlord Sonja Kluesener first suspected something suspicious when three potential renters contacted her about a house in Zebulon that she had just listed on Zillow, and there was a sizeable price difference.
Her ad listed a three-bedroom ranch-style cottage for $1,700 a month. However, they reported finding similar ads on another listing site.
Then it clicked. “People impersonated me,” she told News & Observer.
Scammers took her ad from a popular real estate site and within days created a fake listing using Kluesener’s name, photo and open house times. They also added some sweeteners, including a below market price and a “cat and large dog” permit, before posting it on other sites like Redfin and her ForRent.com.
However, the contact number and email listed were not hers.
“Each of these people believed they were emailing me and were attempting to wire $4,500 for rent and security to the person who posted the false listing. [They] I even sent people to my open house to make it look legit,” Kluesener said.
The scam was unraveled when people became suspicious and contacted her through Zillow. But she worries that others aren’t so lucky. “I don’t know how to stop it other than letting the public know,” she said.
A Zillow spokesperson said the Zillow team actively monitors the site for scams and potential scams and prevents them from being posted.
“If a listing is found to be fraudulent, it will be removed from the site as soon as possible,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Zillow also provides warnings on its website about how to avoid rental and home sale scams and other Internet scams.
on the rise
Real estate fraud is nothing new. But with rents, home prices and inflation still high in today’s volatile housing market, some industry experts warn fraud may be on the rise.
According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, 11,578 people nationwide will lose about $350 million to this type of fraud in 2021.
The office of North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said it was aware of such fraud, but did not track the number or receive reports of the incident. , we recommend that you report it directly to your local law enforcement agency.” Nazneen Ahmed, spokesperson for the Attorney General, said:
Lynn Foster is a real estate agent working for Apex. She said she has seen this type of scam for years, targeting homes for sale as well as rentals.
“I think these scams are more common than we believe,” she said. [scammers] As we become more savvy with internet hacking and as buyers and renters become more desperate due to housing shortages, we will see this type of activity increase. ”
Dustin Engelken, director of government affairs at the Triangle Apartment Association, urged “healthy skepticism” when going into apartment hunting.
“If you see something that’s well below market rent and you think it tastes too good, it’s probably true,” he said.
Other red flags include wire transfers of funds and requests for transactions via text messages.
“A lot of times they say, ‘Send me a deposit via Venmo or a cash app,’ and then we never hear from them again,” said Engelken. “You certainly don’t want to pay someone you’ve never met or who isn’t paid directly to a legitimate company. Additional research needs to be done.”
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