Phony real estate listings coming to light

The Better Business Bureau and Consumer Alert are warning people about phony real estate ads appearing on Craigslist and Zillow. Nelda Morgan, a local 21st Century real-estate agent in Kennett, knows first hand about these scams. Within the last couple of years, she has been experienced it twice. "I would never have known it if the girl wanting to rent it hadn't called me to check," said Morgan. "She was told in an email not to contact the agent because their contract had ended, and the agent hadn't picked up the sign yet."

Bobbie Smith, who works in Kennett, was the prospective renter who called Morgan. Smith was looking for a house to rent when a friend suggested looking on Craigslist, and it was not until she went into the Jonesboro site that she was able to find one Kennett listing. She received an answer within hours of emailing the address listed to a jameswilson99800@outlook.com. The email, written in broken English, tells her that he and his wife were transferred to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and will be out of state for five or six years, so they needed someone to rent the house. They give a description of the home, including telling her to drive by the house, but "ignore the sign post and don't bother to contact the agents there for any reason." Smith said she became suspicious, so she called Morgan and found out that the house was her listing, and the person behind the email was a scammer. "I will never look for anything on Craigslist again," declared Smith.

Morgan said the first time she experienced the scam was between 2013-2014, when the homeowner called her because people were peering through her windows. "This could be potentially dangerous," said Morgan. "If someone has no idea what is going on, and a man starts peering through their window, they might get shot." She said that house was just outside the Kennett city limits.

According to Morgan, in the most current case, the Kennett homeowner called Dunklin County Recorder of Deeds, Susan Luce, who in turn called the Kennett Police Department. Luce said around Chicago, people have been taking locks off, replacing them, and then renting or selling the property. "I'm concerned about this, because will we start seeing bogus deeds coming through here?" asked Luce. "Going through the recorder of deeds or the assessor's office can help find out who the previous owner is, in order to check on the legality. We can tell them who the last record owner was, and they could contact them."

In order to avoid bogus deeds, Luce suggests when purchasing a piece of property, to be sure and purchase title insurance. That way the buyer knows that it is free and clear of past owners.

Kennett Police Department Detective John Higgins said that in order to find who is behind this particular scam, he subpoenaed Microsoft as well as Craigslist. "More than likely we will find that it comes from a ghost ISP address," said Higgins. "But hopefully, we will come up with something that will help us." He went on to say that if it continues in this area, the department can contact the federal authorities. "They have a lot more resources to catch them," said Higgins.

In the meantime, the Better Business Bureau does have some tips in order to avoid the online home rental scam. Watch for online ads where the landlord only corresponds through email or text, has an out of town area code, wants large payments or deposits up front, or will only accept payment through online payment systems like money gram or wire transfers. According to the Federal Trade Commission (consumer.ftc.gov), some scammers are actually hijacking real rental or real estate listings by changing the email address or contact information and placing it in a modified ad. So, the FTC asks that if someone has been found a target of rental a scam to report it to the local law enforcement agency, to the FTC, and contact the website where the ad was posted.