5 Tips To Avoid A Rental Scam

Your rental experience may become a real disaster if you do not prepare to enter the market.

Rental Scam – Having some basic knowledge about the scammers and their techniques is a must for everyone who wants to rent a place successfully without dealing with frauds and their shady rental scam. We prepared an ultimate list of 5 tips to avoid a rental scam. 

Identify Who The Owner Is

With a simple Google search, you can find out if the person is associated with the area, or even if they’ve been named in scams in the past by news outlets, local law enforcement or previous victims.

Prior to going ahead and signing the lease agreement you should ask for the homeownership documents that prove that you’re dealing with a person who has all the rights to rent out this place. This will help you understand that this whole deal is legit.

Avoid anyone who’s telling you that the documents will be sent to you later, a real homeowner doesn’t have any reasons to avoid showing you the documents.

When you see the ownership documents and the name there doesn’t match with the name of the landlord, there is nothing to do here.

Verify the Location

This helps you avoid a bait-and-switch from an agent who’s trying to get you to accept another apartment. Search the address online to see if the property is listed for sale by a different real estate agent or if the rental shows different contact information elsewhere, which is a sign that someone is using the property as a rental scam.

Check Street Views of The Property

When you look at the property on an online map, click on the street view option to see if the property matches the exterior photo in the listing.

Visit and Tour The Rental

Having a chance to look at the place you plan to rent should be the number one priority for you and once this requirement is not met, you can skip that landlord.

Any landlord who is really planning to rent out the place is ready to show it and confirm that it actually looks like the pictures he provided on the website. 

This also goes to those who are trying to rent a place in the other city while working on the relocation process. Basically, even if this situation you should ensure that your friend, family member or your trustee pays a visit to the landlord’s unit and takes a look at it.

Even though there are lots of scammers who actually have access to the property, insisting on a house tour is a huge step towards a more transparent rental process.

If you do this, you’re also more likely to notice other details that may be deal breakers for your next home, like an aggressive neighbor dog, a busy street or poor upkeep.

{READ: 6 Ways To Invest In Real Estate With Little or No Money Down}

Meet the Landlord in Person

Yes, there are online platform that makes it possible to eSign the lease, pay rent and even schedule the house tour online.

However, once the tour is scheduled and you come to see the apartment, you should meet the actual landlord, the homeowner, the person who has all the rights to rent out this place to you.

Any landlord who is a potential scammer will avoid a chance to show you a place, skip any kind of real interaction including the property tours and agreement signing that legitimate landlord usually prefers. Paying rent online is a foolproof way to protect yourself from scams.

What To Do If You Have Been Scammed

We tried to provide you with the most extensive list of tips that should help you avoid the rental scams and find your perfect place without any hassle. We believe that this is all the information you may need for your rental journey, it should help you spot a scammer. However, sometimes even the most attentive person may miss one detail and become a victim of rental frauds.

There are a few simple steps that you should consider if you became involved in a rental scam:

• Call the Federal Trade Commission Consumer Response Center toll-free hotline: 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357)
• Fill in the FTC online complaint form
• File a complaint on the Internet Crime Complaint Center
• Call the police and give them all the details you have on the deal you had and the person that turned out to be a scammer
• Contact your legal advisor or a lawyer who handles these issues
• Leave a negative review on this ad to make sure that no one else will fall into this trap