Yesterday a woman calls me about a property we have listed for rent. She tells me she saw it on Zillow for $1,550 and on CL for $530 and wanted to know if it was a typo. I tell her I do not put my listings on CL so she sends me the link to the ad along with a note that she hopes this helps us catch the scammer.

I found the ad thanks to the caller and sent the scammer an email advising them to take it down since I'd reported it to CL and CharMeck PD Fraud division. I tell my wife about it who says I should have asked to meet them and have the police be there to catch them. She decides to send a response saying she is interested in seeing the property. That was about 10 minutes after my email. Turns out they had already taken the ad down.

The woman who called me is coming to our open house today. It's refreshing to know that people realize there are scammers and want to help stop them from bilking people.

Working on a roof one day I heard a group of folks pull up in the driveway and start walking through the house (the front door was open). Took me a few minutes to get down to them.

There were "oohing and awing" over the idea of a four bedroom, 3 bathroom house for "only" $500 a month. Sorry folks, it's a lot more than that.

Funny thing is, they suspected this was a scam but still had to check it out.

After that, I locked the front door and when I left I taped a note to the front door explaining the situation.

Bill says if anyone is stupid enough to send a scammer money without seeing the place (and one woman did sent $750 to someone and then contacted me and asked if I could do anything about this...nope!) then they might deserve what they get.

Gail

Working on a roof one day I heard a group of folks pull up in the driveway and start walking through the house (the front door was open). Took me a few minutes to get down to them.

There were "oohing and awing" over the idea of a four bedroom, 3 bathroom house for "only" $500 a month. Sorry folks, it's a lot more than that.

Funny thing is, they suspected this was a scam but still had to check it out.

After that, I locked the front door and when I left I taped a note to the front door explaining the situation.

Bill says if anyone is stupid enough to send a scammer money without seeing the place (and one woman did sent $750 to someone and then contacted me and asked if I could do anything about this...nope!) then they might deserve what they get.

Gail

I had a RE agent alert me to a scam a few years back. While I had watermarked my photos, the watermark did not show well on the exterior photo, which is what the scammer used on a site with thumbnails only.

The realtor called because her clients, a couple who wanted to rent in the area, saw the ad and demanded to know why she hadn't shown them this nice, cheap one.

I thanked her profusely, and have now done it for a couple of other landlords while checking out the competition. Pay it forward kind of idea.

That's why I still resort to the old 2' x 3' sign out front.Sl no one gets scammed.

I also do watermarks on all of our pix. This scammer went back and found an old ad before we used watermarks and only used the pic of the exterior.

I also had a woman once who not only gave the scammer $900 (well under our price) but at the instructions of the scammer who claimed to have lost the only key sent out a locksmith to change the locks. Thankfully I had contractors working on the property there to stop the locksmith.

Zillow keeps the old photos.