Yahoo Finance Desperation in rental market creating easy prey for scammers
It was around the first week of March 2017 when Geoff McLean, a Victoria-based realtor with Re/Max Camosun, started getting some pretty strange phone calls.
“It was kind of crazy. We were getting over 150 phone calls and emails last week asking if one of our listings was for rent or not,” recounts McLean.
Unfortunately for these callers, it wasn’t for rent it was for sale. These callers were victims of a specific rental scam where photos of homes often listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service are re-listed on Kijiji, Craigslist or other website as homes for rent. When these callers would inquire about the listing, the renter would insist they send first and last month’s rent along with a damage deposit site unseen and then when these renters did, they would discover that the advertised property wasn’t for rent at all with no way to recover their money.
“In Victoria right now we have such a tight rental market that people are getting a little desperate and they’re willing to take a chance that this might be legit. When they check it out and discover that it’s not legit, they’re thankful they didn’t send the money,” says McLean.
According to Victoria police, this scam is not just in Victoria either. When people come looking for work in the oil fields of Fort McMurray, the competition for rental housing is so bad that scammers will sometimes run this scam while standing outside the very home the victim is trying to rent for the next month.
“They’ll say ‘Hey look, I’m sorry I can’t let you in there. There are tenants in there right now, but you can have it for the beginning of the month. All I need is your first month’s rent and deposit. The renter will give it to them, they’ll shake hands and walk away and the person will come back at the beginning of the month, go up to the door and the owner will say, ‘What are you talking about? My place is not for rent,’” says Const. Sean Millard of the Victoria Police Department.
Millard himself says that this particular scam isn’t very common in Victoria and though calls by Yahoo Finance Canada to Canada’s Anti-Fraud Centre were not returned, CBC reported that there were 139 reported rental scams in Canada between January and March 2016.
How to protect yourself
Knowing how to protect yourself if you’re faced with a potentially questionable deal is key, especially in March, which is Fraud Prevention Month.
“Contact the landlord by phone. Get a phone number and don’t have them call you, you call them and then you have a number that can be traced that that person has answered at. This helps,” says Millard.
But at the end of the day, go to the building and ask around. Knock on some doors of neighbours and verify that the person you think lives there actually does and that their place is for rent.
“Ask to see the place and if they say you can’t, go to the apartment and check with a neighbour. Check the number on the front of the apartment building to see if that person really owns it,” says Millard.
You might not even have to go that far before you realize it’s a scam. Copies of emails posted to rentalscams.org feature spelling mistakes common with Nigerian e-mail scams and love scams that should be a red flag. Besides, if the person you’re talking to gets defensive under perfectly reasonable questioning, Millard says you should walk away.
“What type of landlord is going to be evasive? Someone that wants your money and someone that wants you to live in their home shouldn’t be evasive. That should be a red flag right there,” says Millard.