Caveat Emptor! (”Let the Renter Beware!”) With the increasing use of advertising methods such as Craigslist, scammers are out to get into your pocketbook. Scammers take real properties that are actually for rent, slash the prices to entice potential rentes to email them about the availability. Then they tell stories about how they are a homeowner who was transferred overseas, and will give you their place very cheap. They will lie to you and tell you all you have to do is wire in the deposit to a bank account somewhere outside the US, typically to countries like Nigeria, and they will send the keys and paperwork. Once you send the money, they are out gone, along with your money.

New scams, warned by the NAR’s website state:

“The National Association of REALTORS® has learned that its good name is being used as part of a property rental scam. In this scam, rental property is offered to consumers, who are led to believe that NAR is functioning as an intermediary to receive rental deposits from prospective tenants and, upon receipt of the deposit, to deliver the keys to the property to the tenant. The tenant is instructed to send money via Western Union to NAR’s purported agent. NAR is not involved in this business and believes it is a scam. NAR has contacted law enforcement officials to request that the matter be investigated.