I had an eye opening experience a couple of weeks ago. I had an application from a perspective tenant. Everything looked OK but I was a little uneasy about his application. It just seemed a little off. My wife started digging to rule out any problems. He had good wages but his credit was poor at best. The more we looked at everything, something was definitely off. We could not quite put our finger on it. We spent an hour going over everything. Then my wife found it. His employer's phone was linked in an online post to a lawn mowing business he had several years earlier. Then the Google map showed his employer's place of business as a single wide trailer although they were writing over 100 payroll check every pay cycle. The Sec. Of State's webpage show no business of that name. Then I ask myself: Could this be a fake paycheck stub? Yes, it was!!! You can go online and for $10 or $20 you can print off fake payroll stubs for the wages you choose from any business you choose or make up one. I spent several minutes looking into it. There are many different styles and designs. I found at least 20 different companies that are offering this scam. Landlords: BE WARE!

I've come across online providers of false:

a) utility bills

b) bank statements

c) pay stubs

d) college degrees

e) marriage licenses

f) deaf certificates

g) doctors note for companion animals

I've had applicants furnish false pay stubs,

bank statements, credit reports and other important

documents. I'm only glad that I check each item through more than one source.

A few weeks back I found a C-List post....3 of them all similar, but slightly different offering a large menu of fake documents. Not only that but they would also act as your Boss, your Landlord and other such service of fakery.

I had a tenant that borrowed money from his company to

pay rent. It was a big company and they verified it. I never got my rent. I'm pretty it was a well done scam.

Very creative.

William,

Thanks for the heads up!

I did a simple search of the intergoogs and it gave me 2 pages!! of websites!!

I will forward this info to our screen immediately!

Thanks!

Ads for these pop up on my local craigslist all the time.

I once had a couple applying for a rental who said they worked for the same company (that's how they met...how romantic).

Each brought their own paystub. Although he had been hired after her both made EXACTLY the same hourly wage. And the paystubs showed they had both had exactly the same number of sick and annual leave hours.

Of course closer examination of the forms finally revealed how they had carefully whited out her name on one of these and typed his name in. I doubt the guy even had a job.

While cheaper than buying a fake paystub these idiots should have a least used two different ones from her.

I dont put much faith in an applicants "pay stub" or an applicant provided credit report. I would not even trust seeing the applicants "pay cheque".

They don't even have to go that far. I had a female postal carrier apply. She brought a pay stub that said she made 30K. She held it and I looked at it. Turns out she had her thumb over the other persons name.

Oh, I have a good one....years ago the son of a friend of mine...I knew the dad.....wanted to live in my little unit. This kid was bad news, didn't work, sold drugs. No, I said. The dad passed on and I ran into the mother of the kid a few months later...I knew her briefly as they were divorced.

She told me her kid found a nice apartment to rent. I said "oh, great, he found a job!" She said no....her brother owned a construction company and he forged pay stubs and a work history so this loser could rent the unit...needless to say, he did not stay there long as he was evicted for non payment of rent...she actually told me this!!

This is good to learn about. I had no idea.

One thing i do for verification , besides using AppFolio's internal background check, is to Use only phone #s i can find on the internet for contact employers. For landlord verification, it its a single family house or part-time landlord, i'll look them up on the county records to be sure they are actually the owner.

Fake pay stubs, fake letters of job offer's and fake refrences. You can print anything off your ink jet printer. One applicant with a nice family two kids was transferred from California. The address on the pay stub was a vacant lot in California. When I asked the applicant about this, he pulled the application.

Recently an applicant who had a new job forwarded me his offer letter from his soon to be employer.

In addition gave me 4,000 in cashiers checks for his double deposit. That was the first warning sign. Never cashed the checks and the soon to be employer would not confirm the letter or offer.

Happened to me a few years back.

The reason I caught it was as the year progressed the YTD wages went down!!

I gave them an A for effort however!.

With technology now days it's very easy to create