Craigslist scam targets rental home seekers

A warning about a Craigslist scam concerning rental properties.  A local property manager’s ads were hijacked by scammers in China. Fortunately, he found out and was able to take them down and now he wants people to know about this scam.

Craigslist continues to grow in popularity and by now, people should know to remain extra cautious when answering ads.

Ken Shimer is a property manager in Myrtle Beach, only about two months into his business. So far, Craigslist worked really well for him that is until a Chinese scam group decided to hijack his ad.

Shimer said about 75 percent of his rental business came from Craigslist. So when he decided to market a multi-million dollar beach home he never really expected any problems.

“We marketed a very high-end property down along the golden mile of the beach for $3,800 a month,” said Shimer. “I started getting phone calls from people all over that had seen an ad for the same house for $1,345 a month.“

But then, people started contacting him about possible fraud with his ads. “When I found this going on, I found out somebody had taken the pictures and ran a new ad and was trying to get people to send money Western Union oversees for homes they didn’t even own.“

Kelly Cook is one of the people who ran across one of the scam ads while looking for a home. Her husband is a Realtor. She said she found a fabulous home, but red flags popped up.

“I asked my husband does this sound reasonable to you and he said well, not really,” said Cook.  “But you can email and ask a couple of questions and don’t give out any personal information and see what they say.“ 

She found out very quickly it was a scam.  “There were no keys here in the states. We would have to send deposit money to China, they would mail keys to us and at that point, we knew it was not a true deal, that it was a scam.“

Shimer contacted the police but these types of cases fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI. Sgt. Joseph Hawes of the Horry County Police Department’s Property Crimes Division said you simply must not fall for things that appear to good to be true.

He said if you’re using sites like Craigslist, always pay with cash and meet face-to-face in a public place.  He said if you run into a problem, the first step is to file a complaint with the government website: IC3.GOV. They work with internet fraud.