CLEARWATER, Fla. — Tampa Bay realtors are fed up with folks copying their listings and attempting to rip-off renters in search of a house. It is a difficulty getting worse right here within the Tampa Bay space as reasonably priced housing turns into more durable to come back by.

“I’ve in all probability answered 50 calls over the weekend,” Jess Rasemont, a realtor with Sellstate Legacy Realty in Tampa Bay.

Sometimes that is precisely what a realtor needs after they checklist a property on the market, besides after they’re promoting a two-bedroom house in Clearwater for $343,000, and persons are calling to hire it for $900 a month.

Jess Rasemont

“All Friday, all by means of the afternoon, all by means of the night, all Saturday morning, all Sunday, I used to be fielding a ton of calls from renters potential renters who had seen the property listed for $900,” Rasemont defined.

The folks calling mentioned that the particular person claiming to be the proprietor through a publish on-line instructed them that he took a brand new job in Texas and that they might drive by the house to see it. That is when lots of them noticed the on the market signal out entrance and referred to as Rasemont.

She additionally acquired a name from Pinellas County Shopper Safety telling her that her itemizing had been copied and pasted on Craigslist.

“I reached out to the one that listed their cellphone quantity posing as my vendor,” Rasemont instructed ABC Motion Information.

Within the textual content messages, the particular person had a Pinellas County space code, used the home-owner’s actual title and requested for $1,800 for the safety deposit and first month’s hire along with an software payment through Bitcoin.

Jess Rasemont

Jess Rasemont

“He needed me to seek out the closest Bitcoin ATM, after which he was going to ship me his code to ship him a $100 software payment,” Rasemont.

She flagged the publish on Craigslist for 3 days earlier than it was taken down. The Pinellas County Shopper Safety Workplace instructed us that they flagged the publish as nicely and are nonetheless investigating who was behind it.

“Our division has begun an initiative to attempt to flag and report fraudulent rental listings,” defined Pinellas County Shopper Safety Investigator Anna Marie Fiallos.

The county investigators began reviewing rental adverts on Craigslist and Fb Market in April and recognized 63 fraudulent listings in lower than 4 months.

“We notice with the present market scams are on the rise as a result of you could have, you realize, excessive hire will increase, after which you could have a low availability of reasonably priced housing,” Fiallos added.

We did a seek for a two-bedroom house for hire in Tampa Bay on Craigslist and located most common about $2,000, however a couple of are nearly half that value.

By means of our analysis, we discovered that these posting unusually low-cost leases usually say they can not do excursions as a result of they’re out of state for work.

“When a scammer or whoever it’s that you just’re contacting refuses to fulfill with you, oftentimes they’re going to say yeah, go forward and drive by the property look within the home windows,” Fiallos confirmed.

We additionally spoke with one other Tampa Bay realtor who mentioned somebody posted one in every of his properties for hire on Craigslist utilizing a Google Voice cellphone quantity. That is a quantity related to a mobile phone or laptop totally free, even when worldwide.

“There’s other ways to disguise who they’re and the cellphone numbers,” Fiallos mentioned, “However we’re usually discovering that they are not native.”

She provides that Bitcoin machine cash transfers are additionally a more moderen solution to get cash that may’t be traced.

“We all the time advise customers, any kind of fee, it is best to make use of a bank card that manner you may dispute it if there needs to be a difficulty,” Fiallos suggested.

Apart from doing thorough analysis, it is the most secure to pursue leases by means of a licensed dealer or actual property agent.

“It actually does bug me for folks to get taken benefit of that is my group,” Rasemont. “We’re constructing group by means of actual property and attempting to assist folks and to see folks get taken benefit of… everyone’s working so exhausting. You recognize the economic system isn’t nice proper now. So each greenback counts.”

The rental rule of thumb: If it appears too good to be true, it in all probability is.

Hillsborough County tells us they have been in a position to catch 5 rental scammers within the final six months by means of group suggestions and knowledge submitted to the sheriff’s workplace.

If caught, prices vary from schemeing to defraud, impersonation, and grand theft — felonies that might end in jail time.

In case you are a sufferer of a potential rip-off, report it to your native shopper safety workplace, legal professional common, and FBI.

We reached out to Craigslist and Fb for data on their insurance policies and actions to take away fraudulent listings.

Fb responded with hyperlinks to their insurance policies and recommendation. Click on right here.

Ideas for renters from USA.gov:

Be suspicious that the property or transaction may very well be a rip-off if:

• The marketed value is way decrease than that of comparable properties.
• Advertisements for the property have grammatical and spelling errors, or overuse capital letters.
• The advert makes use of unusual spellings of phrases, like “favor” as an alternative of “favor.”
• You’ll be able to solely work with an agent. The agent says that the proprietor is just too busy, in another country, or in any other case unavailable to deal with the rental.
• The proprietor or agent requires you to signal the lease earlier than you see the rental property.
• The proprietor or agent is not in a position to allow you to enter the house or residence or prices you a payment to view it.
• The proprietor or agent makes use of high-pressure gross sales ways. They might urge you to hire rapidly earlier than another person will get the property.

Do:

• Be taught the fundamentals of how rental itemizing scams work.
• Get the phrases of your rental in writing, together with charges, hire, and upkeep.
• Get a replica of the lease, signed by each you and the property proprietor/supervisor.
• Do a search on the proprietor, actual property administration firm, and itemizing. For those who discover the identical advert listed beneath a special title, that is a clue it might be a rip-off.
• Go to actual property web sites. See if the house you need to hire can also be listed in one other metropolis. A scammer might have copied the picture or description of one other rental to make use of of their advert.
• Learn the way navy households can keep away from rental scams (PDF, Obtain Adobe Reader).

Do not

• Do not wire cash as a deposit or fee for the primary and final month’s hire. Wiring cash is identical as giving money; you may’t get a refund, even if you happen to discover out the supply was a fraud.
• Do not give in to high-pressure gross sales ways.
• Do not pay a safety deposit, payment, or first month’s hire earlier than you have signed a lease.
• Do not hire a property that you’re unable to see earlier than signing the settlement.
• Do not ship cash for a rental abroad.
• Do not give your private data or Social Safety quantity to a property proprietor with out verifying their id.

Click on right here for particular recommendation from Pinellas County Shopper Safety.