6 Tips to Avoid Rental Scams on Facebook and Craigslist

Every day, we see rental Ads in Boston about fantastic deals: entire rooms and even complete apartments, fully-furnished and in ideal locations, for an unbelievable price. Score!!

But how do you know it is not a rental scam? Let us walk you through some common red flags we typically find and you need to be aware of when planning your move to Boston and any other big city.

To start, all of them happened to have the landlord out of the country, perhaps on business, in the military or doing missionary work somewhere in Asia. They ask you to pay them via wire transfer for you to get the keys or want you to sign before even seeing anything. RUN!!

Here is a list of major red flags for rental scams and tips you need to know when booking a room online.

1. A landlord is out of the country.
2. They don’t want to show you the place first.
3. The listing details are vague.
4. They are ready to make a deal with no background information.
5. They want you to sign before seeing anything.
6. The asking rent prices don’t match up the average market prices.
7. They ask you to wire money and are pushy about payment — “Hey I have three more people, you’ll risk losing if you don’t wire the money now.”
8. The front door photo comes from Google Maps: ask yourself why.
9. The person who posted has a new FB account, perhaps one photo, and 0 to 10 friends.
10. If the FB account seems brand new, with almost no content, probably was created with the purpose of disappearing after taking your money.
11. All the photos are excellent, almost professional, too good to be true, pristine decoration; they are almost always cut and pasted from another website.
12. Owner asking for your personal information (credit card info, and so on).

Here, some of the most used safety tips when booking a room online:

1. Exercise common sense. Ask yourself why is this great bedroom in this great location for such a low price (usually way below market)?
2. Look online for some comparable (Zillow or HotPads) to see if the price makes sense.
3. As much as possible, as for an in-person showing or have someone you trust take a look at if you are not in the city/country. As a plan B, ask for a Skype/WhatsApp video showing so that you can verify the place by yourself.
4. Verify that the place exists on Google Maps (write down the whole address, including apartment number) if you are renting a room do the same procedure and ask how many rooms does the property has and proceed with Google Maps to verify.
5. Try to negotiate to delay payment until you arrive. You can offer part of the deposit to secure the room (after all the safety screening described above) and offer to pay the rest when you arrive.
6. Verify that your landlord / rental agent/sublease has proven identities in all social media platforms (LinkedIn, FB, Twitter) and that their pages have a real history.

While we do not claim to know them all, and the tips above don’t represent legal or professional advice, the ones described are the most common and they will be useful when searching online for places to stay.

Posted by Clara Arroyave| 06.24.2019

If you need help finding a room for rent in Boston, visit PlaceMe website placemeliving.com or contact our team.