Fraudster impersonates real owner to carry out online rental scam
Photo by: Aaron Escobar
In a scam uncovered this week, a fraudster lifted details of an online rental ad just a day after it was posted online and tried to scam rental hopefuls of money by posting a new ad on Craigslist.
The property in Chesterfield, Richmond, VA belonged to Kerstin Stoval. She had actually listed the property for sale in an online property site.
The fraudster copied details from this ad and offered it for rent at Craigslist. He also created a new Yahoo! email account using Stoval’s name and placed it on the ad as his contact.
To those who answered the ad, he claimed to be presently on a business trip to Africa. He sent respondents a detailed application form and asked them to fill it up and email the same back.
He asked them to send a deposit of $400 plus $800 as one month’s advance rent in order to receive the keys to the property.
In a bold move that perhaps backfired for the fraudster, he also asked prospective renters to pay a visit to the site. Those who took this advice were thankfully saved from the scam.
When they visited the site, they saw signboards outside that listed the property for sale. The board also gave Kerstin Stoval’s real number to contact. The scam was revealed to them when they did just that.
One enterprising lady uncovered the scam through another route. Feeling suspicious about the fraudster’s story, she decided to check out local tax records. From here she collected Stoval’s number and then talked to her.
Kirsten herself became aware of the scam when people started turning up on her door the very next day saying they were answering an ad placed in Craigslist offering the place for rent.
With the cooperation of Craigslist, she got the ad removed and later also filed a complaint with FTC.
Source: WTVR.com
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October 16th, 2008 at 11:31 am
[...]Fraudster impersonates real owner to carry out online rental scam - Original post by Fraud and Scam News [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
This scam happend to me!