One of the strategies of rental scammers is to price the ‘fake’ rental below the average rental rate in a specific market. This allows the scammers to receive as many emails or inquiries as possible.

One way to see if a rental is too good to be true is to look at average rental rates for like properties within that area. rentBits has a rental rates tool that currently offers rental rates for over 4,000 cities in the US.

For example, if you see an ad on Craigslist for a two bedroom home for rent in Phoenix for $400 / mo. You can go to rentBits.com and see that the average rental rates in phoenix are $786. For a 2 bedroom home in Phoenix, the current rental rate is $787 / Mo.

Our mission is to educate renters, property managers, agents and owners on the many different types of rental scams that are on the internet today.

The only way to defeat scammers is by eliminating their economic incentives to continue scamming. We feel, through education, we can accomplish this goal.

There are commonalities with all rental scam emails. Below are some tips when dissecting a rental scam email.

1. Does the email start out with Sir / Madam?
2. Are there misspellings in the email?
3. Are there character mistakes in the email? i.e Hello,my nameis Susie.
4. Is there excessive capitalization?
5. Does the email reference God, UK, Cashiers Check, Doctor, Nigeria, Reverend, etc.
6. Is the email from a free email provider. i.e gmail, yahoo, aol, hotmail.
7. Does the email refer to another person or agent?
8. Does the email reference wanting to move in site unseen?

If the email has a majority of these commonalities, then the chances are very good it is a scammer. If you are unsure, it is best to not reply to the email.

Originally from the rentBits.com blog.

In 2007, total internet fraud was around $240 million in the US.

Over the last year or so, the rental industry has seen a dramatic rise in rental scams and rental scam complaints.

At Rent Marketer and Apartment Marketer, we do everything in our power to ensure rental scams don’t get sent to our clients or renters. It is virtually impossible to stop every single scam email from getting through our system, but for those that do, we hope through education we will be able to hit the scammers where it hurts the most, through economics.

If we can eliminate the economic incentives for scammers, we can eliminate their behavior completely. If we can educate renters, property managers, owners, and agents on the various rental scams, over time, scammers will no longer have an economic incentive to scam.

Both Rent Marketer and Apartment Marketer use a variety of tools to help educate consumers and decrease the chances of a scammer contacting a client or renter.

Here is what we do:

Every Phone Number is Masked with a free Toll Free number
One thing you don’t want is to have your cell phone or house number out there for all to see. It is very easy to to do a reverse phone lookup and find your name, address, and any other information these scammers can use against you.
Known Scammer emails and Phone Numbers are Filtered
Being proactive, (stopping scam emails from reaching our clients) and Reactive (Immediately stopping scammer email and phone numbers from reaching any further clients)
Using other proprietary filtering technology
Educational Tools
Every email has a scammer warning attached
We recently launched RentalScams.org to help educate and call out scammer email addresses and email content
Who to contact about scam information in account
Screening Ads
Some scammers try to post ads and do a “Property Owner Scam“
We Screen ads using a variety of techniques
There is more we as an industry can do to help in the destruction of the rental scammer business model. By working together, we can do much more than working alone.

Some thoughts on how we can work together (I will write more about this in another post). Some suggestions may not work but this is meant to start a conversation:

Central Rental Scammer Database
All rental and classifieds sites could connect to it in real time to post or receive data on known rental scammers.
Help from ISPs and Email providers like Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, etc
Most free email providers are automatically reading the content of the email in order to serve relevant ads. Gmail for example does this and notifies users of known phishing emails. Why couldn’t Google do this with renter scammers? Most scam emails have very similar content.
Government Agency Help
The FTC and the BBB has a lot of information on scammers. Could we use this data?
Combined Rental and Classified Help

What about a cookie being placed on known scammer browsers? If that scammer tries to go to another participating rental or classified site they are flagged.
What you some of your ideas?

We received a letter from a reader notifying us of a scammer who said the have a sponsor. This is how the scam works.

Scammer contacts home owner
Scammer says they will be living in the states for 2 years and that a large company is sponsoring them
Scammer send Fake Cashiers check for a large sum of money.
Scammer asks if home owner can send the remaining money to their sponsor via a wire
Fake cashiers check is not noticed as fake and the home owner wires remaing funds to scammer
The reader contacted this individual and below is the conversation.

Subject: Re: $1295 / 3br – Adorable Single Family Home (Williamstown) (map)
To: [email protected]
Date: Friday, 19 September, 2008, 2:42 PM

hI,
HOW ARE YOU. i WOULD BE HAPPY TO HAVE YOU RENT MY HOME. hOWEVER i WOULD NEED SOME CONFIRMATION FROM THE ELI LILLY COMPANY THAT THIS IS THE ARRANGEMENT. i WOULD NEED TO HAVE A NUMBER TO CONTACT THEM. IN THE NORMAL CONTRACT i REVEIW QUALIFICATIONS OF THE APPLICANT TO PAY BUT THAT WOULD BE QUITE DIFFERENT FOR YOU.
IF YOU COULD FURNISH ME A CONTACT THERE TO CONFIRM ALL OF THESE DETAILS I WOULD APPRECIATE IT. PLEASE RESPOND SOON AS I DO HAVE PEOPLE LOOKING AT THIS HOME.
THANK YOU
————– Original message ————–
From: natal blige [email protected]
Good day,
I really appreciate your response and details provided, my sponsors (Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals) have agreed on the monthly fees to be paid for the next two years on my behalf. Therefore, they agreed to pay up front the amount of ($3238 PAYMENT FOR THE FIRST MONTH RENT PLUS DEPOSIT STARTING FROM MY MOVING IN DATE WHICH WILL BE ON THE 4TH OF OCTOBER); also since I will be staying for two years, the company has agreed to pay in a monthly installation. Furthermore, I would like you to know a US Cashier che que will be issued to you in an excess amount by my sponsors for the first month rent, security deposit and my travelling expenses; the excess amount will be sent to me immediately as soon as you receive payment from my sponsors.
However, the information below is required from you by my sponsors to have payment sent to you immediately in order for you to hold down this property until I arrive;

NAME ON US CASHIER CHEQUE

FULL CONTACT ADDRESS

HOME PHONE NUMBER

MOBILE NUMBER

Finally, I would like to know how peaceful is the neighbourhood and how close is the property from the bus/train station as I will be leaving on the 3rd and arriving on the 4th of October. My main purpose of relocating is based on my research proposal on Pharmaceutical industries (Financial Analysis); and I was granted a part time sponsorship on my accommodation and travel expense. Also all necessary Paper work will be treated by me when I arrive and set to move into th e property.
I await the details soonest for payment, so I can start my moving in plans ASAP.

Regards

Natal Blige
— On Tue, 16/9/08, wrote:

Subject: Re: $1295 / 3br – Adorable Single Family Home (Williamstown) (map)
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, 16 September, 2008, 3:03 PM

Hi,
the rent is 1295.00 per month and the deposit would be 1 1/2 month security.
is is a very cute house and nice neighborhood.
——- Original message ————–
From: natal blige [email protected]
Good day Sir/ Madam,
My name is Natal Blige; I am 24 years of age and a citizen of the United Kingdom and will be relocating for a short period of two years on a research programme to the United States . As I was reviewing rental adverts, I got particularly interested in your property, I would like you to email me pictures, and I would also like to know the exact fees to be paid monthly and the security deposit in order for me to pass information to my sponsors.
Thanks for your assistance.
Cheers6