[Pharaoh2]

This scams are very common and fairly easy to detected even without contacting the person.

I have been looking at apartments since november and finally found a place in January, and this is the third apartment I have rented in SF over the last 5 years. I believe this one would have been caught by point 2.

Detecting a SF craigslist rental scam:

1. Is it too good to be true? Its a scam. What's too good to be true you ask? Check other listings, especially on something like rentSFnow, or the many other property management company to get a baseline price range.

2. Reverse image search the images and if it comes from a house listing on redfin or some other website to buy/sell houses, its a scam.

3. Does it mention a management company? Check their website, if the apartment is not listed there, its a scam. If they don't have a website, its a scam. Does the building/apartment's google maps or yelp not link to the management company website? Its a scam.

4. Are the pictures really good/professional looking? It MAY be a scam.

5. Does the listing provide no/very little info about the apartment/roommates? Its a scam.

6. Look for listings for the same apartment on alternate sites like apartments.com/hotpad/zillow/trulia. Don't find another listing for the same place? Its a scam, with a minor chance that the owner may not be technically adept, in which case look at the pictures, if they are good, its a scam.

7. Are there multiple postings on the same day/close by with different titles but same content? Its a scam.

If it passes all of these, it may still be a scam, reach out and proceed with caution.

If after reaching out, they ask for deposit before seeing the place, its a scam. If they ask you to sign up on any website, it may be a scam. If the sign up requires credit card/bank account or sensitive personal info, its DEFINITELY A SCAM.

Ignore most things they tell you, the only thing you should care about is actually checking the place out and making sure it works for you in person.

Even if they let you see the place, IT MAY BE A SCAM. Proceed with caution and make sure the person actually own the place/has the right to rent the apartment.

[pmiller2]

Points 2 and 3 are not sure signs of a scam. Some landlords use “stock” photos that may be the same as the ones on Redfin/Zillow/MLS. And, there are “management companies” that amount to an 80 year old guy, his 2 sons, and one of his grandsons, that don’t have a website because they only manage their own properties. These 2 scenarios describe my current and previous apartments, respectively.

[sjf]

Yes, but if the photos obviously unprofessional, badly light and taken with a phone- it is definitely _not_ a scam.

Similarly, no dogs/no cats- almost definitely _not_ a scam. Every scam listing I've seen has had pets OK.

[roel_v]

Yeah that's the one that stuck out to me. An apartment as nice as the one described wouldn't allow pets, at least not if they're as experienced as they claimed to be here.

[robbintt]

That’s not really accurate or else I would only get junk apartments. There’s usually a pet deposit, about 80% are no pets.

[pmiller2]

More like 90% if you have a dog over 30 lbs. :(

[outworlder]

> Even if they let you see the place, IT MAY BE A SCAM. Proceed with caution and make sure the person actually own the place/has the right to rent the apartment.

This part was mind-blowing. I would never considered that someone would show an apartment they don't actually own.

[walrus01]

This has been a thing in Vancouver for a while now. Scammers would rent fully furnished luxury apartments on airbnb for a couple of weeks, and "show" them to potential tenants as if they were the owner or a person needing to sublet, signing leases, collecting first month+deposit payments from like a dozen different people.

Of course this only duped the most gullible, since nobody should be paying rent+deposit for a $3000/month apartment in cash. Then of course when it came to be end of month and time to move in, the scammer would be long gone.

[Spooky23]

Real estate is a very fragile system with all sorts of crazy scams. Deed fraud is a thing — people buy houses and incompetent banks write loans on houses that aren’t for sale.

There were a bunch of cases in Brooklyn a few years ago, some were related to corrupt officials in the Surrogate/Probate court and deceased persons property. Others were grifts affecting unoccupied properties. The system isn't really designed to stop these sorts of frauds.

[Gibbon1]

Friend of mines neighbor lives in a rental with an absentee landlord. Someone stole the landlords identity, took out a homeowners loan on the place, then wired the money to a bank in South America. They found out because real estate vultures started knocking on their door.

[mehrdadn]

> make sure the person actually own the place/has the right to rent the apartment.

What's the right way to do this?

[unishark]

For a house/condo, presumably you can just search for the property online and see who the owner is. Then when you are only writing checks to the actual owner's name, I would feel pretty safe.

[Spooky23]

All I need is one question:

On Craigslist? Probably a scam.

[kirubakaran]

Sure, if you don't care about the false positive rate of your prediction function.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

What are the downsides to missing a legit listing on Craigslist versus falling for one of these scams? I think in this case, having a prediction function with high low false negative rate, but high false positive rate for scams is better than the inverse.

[jakear]

What are the downsides to missing a “looks to good to be true” listing that’s real? You miss the great listing... obviously. And great listings are not at all easy to come by in that area.

[samschooler]

To be fair my last apartment I rented off Craigslist:

- He paid me $1000 to move in

- Gave me all of his furniture for free

- Paid my application fee

I actually got the apartment via a sublease and opted to continue his lease. A few months ago I sold the furniture for a profit and moved with no issue.

[Spooky23]

I can respect that. Perhaps I'm being unfair.

In my area and my experience, I've had about a half dozen interactions with Facebook for significant things. 4/6 were straight up scams.

[jimmaswell]

> or sensitive personal info

Shouldn't be confused with requiring SSN etc for a background and credit check which is standard now.

[pmiller2]

I don’t give my SSN to anyone I haven’t met, unless it’s a legitimate property management or background check site.

[jimmaswell]

That's what I meant. It wouldn't be normal for a landlord to ask for the information over an email or something.

[sokoloff]

Are you saying that you’re protected from an SSN phish on an illegitimate site because you’re careful to only enter your SSN on legitimate sites? How do you know they’re legit?

[jimmaswell]

Look around on google a bit to make sure it's a real rental agency and that the website is the same.

[pmiller2]

Same methods described in the article, plus a little googling.