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by genocidicbunny 863 days ago
I think there's too much plausible deniability for it to rise to the level of fraud, even though we can all kinda tell it is.

Plenty of rental listings will use wide lens to make rooms seem bigger. I've also definitely seen 'staging' furniture that is just a bit smaller than what it should be.

Personally, I think that rental listings should be required to not only include full floor plans of the unit to be rented, they need to make clear the dimensions of all the rooms. You'd probably need to also figure out some punishments for failing to specify the dimensions, or specifying them inaccurately, like allowing the tenants to assume whatever dimensions they want if you don't list them, and if you list them incorrectly (within a certain %) to be fraud.

1 comments

> I think there's too much plausible deniability for it to rise to the level of fraud, even though we can all kinda tell it is.

If it was listed by a private person, sure I'd agree. If this was done by an agent it should be fraud

Are you going to mandate the specific camera and lens being used to take photos of the units? Are you going to mandate that the master bedroom, if it shows a bed, must be a king sized mattress X inches from the floor?

That's my point, too many of these things can be ascribed to taste and ability rather than maliciousness. Good luck proving mens rea.