New Castle homeowner Mark Clark was sitting in his home on Sunday afternoon when he heard a knock at the door.
After saying hello, the visitor announced
he was interested in renting the house. Clark, who has owned the
property for 18 years and recently listed it for sale, was baffled.
“I said, ‘No, it’s not for rent; it’s for
sale,’ but they said they had the ad right there from Craigslist,
listing it at $700 a month,” Clark said.
After Sunday’s incident, Clark was able to
locate the listing on Craigslist, which had copied the bulk of its
information from the actual for-sale listing on other websites.
“Somebody had copied the picture and my
verbiage but put the $700 rental price and their email address,”
explained Clark’s realtor, Phil Weir, of the Western Slope Real Estate
Group.
Since that first visit, Clark has received
at least 10 hopeful renters on his front step, inquiring about the
property and the shockingly low rental rate. With three bedrooms and two
bathrooms, Clark said $700 was probably half the house’s monthly rental
value.
“It’s a case where, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is not true,” Clark said.
In an effort to unveil the scammer, Weir
decided to contact the email address included with the rental listing –
cleanplace776@yahoo.com.
“I decided I would respond to that email
address saying I was interested in renting the property,” Weir said.
“They asked me to fill out a questionnaire, so I did, and the next day
they said I had been selected as the renter.”
The first email sent by “Clean Place”
included a lengthy explanation in broken English, stating the owners
were going to be living in Los Angeles for four years and wanted to rent
out the property.
The email was riddled with grammar and
capitalization errors and included a questionnaire requesting
information about the potential tenant. According to the email,
potential renters were allowed to drive by the property but weren’t
allowed inside.
Perhaps in an attempt to add validity to the email, “Clean Place” signed it with Clark’s name.
After submitting the questionnaire, Weir
received another email, similarly formatted, requesting he send the $700
security deposit via MoneyPak, a payment service. The scammer said
that, once he received the deposit, he’d send the keys and rental
documents.
The email also included a disclaimer about
the for sale sign in Clark’s yard, stating in all capitals, “You have
nothing to worry about it belongs to our previous agent … You don’t have
to call them because they don’t have access to the home anymore.”
By Monday night, Weir had flagged the
rental listing on Craigslist, and it was soon removed from the website.
As far as Clark and Weir know, no one has actually wired the money, and a
number of individuals seemed wary of the bargain.
“I had about 15 people call me [about
renting], because they’d either looked up the house on Google and found
me listed as a seller, or they’d drive by the house and see the for sale
sign with my number on it,” Weir said. “Most of the people calling
thought it was a scam, so I was able to confirm that for them.
Craigslist is notorious for scams.”
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