How sad that we are living in a time when you really have to watch your back. Recently there have been several cases of scammers targeting individuals looking to rent a house. One scheme involves the scammers putting an ad on popular sites such as Craig’s List. They take pictures and information from a legitimate real estate listing and create a new ad listing the property for rent instead of for sale. The scammers also search public records to gather information about the house and to obtain the sellers names. By having the proper owners names their letters to prospective renters look real. As part of the scam they may put the rent at a price that is below market value; this generates a lot of activity. Prospective renters respond to the scammer via email and the scammers will email them back stating that they have left the country and cannot show them the house. The renters will have to go by the information and pictures in the ad. They are instructed to wire the first and last month’s rent and sometimes even a security deposit. Because the rent is such a good deal people don’t want to lose out so they forget about checking carefully to make sure this is legitimate. The scammers can collect rent from several people on the same house. Most of the internet scams that we see involve addresses out of the country. That should be your first red flag. The other warning sign is a price that sounds too good to be true. The third and most important red flag is being asked to wire money with the promise that the keys will be mailed to you. Please don’t fall for this or any other scam.