We became the target of a Craigslist new scam
As a Realtor I like to make sure our listings get the most exposure possible so when we're posting our listings to the many online sites that we do, we made sure to include the trendy "Craigslist" which is basically an online classifed ads website. Imagine my surprise and my sellers horror when we discovered that our for sale listing had been posted with a stranger as a rental. Four of my pictures were used, my description was used and all of his contact information was included! He also listed the house for a substantially lower price than it would actually rent for in increase the amount of interested parties. Just to see what his response would be both me and my seller emailed him posing as prospective interested renters. He emailed back immediately with a long story about how he had to travel out of the country and needed to rent his home while he was gone. He even went into a big and completely bogus story about how long he had lived in the home, what the kitchen was like and various other details of the home and his life story. He stated that he wasn't able to find anyone trustworthy enough to leave a key with so all you can do right now is driveby the home. Included in his email was a rental application and instructions for getting him the security deposit of $950 in Nigeria in order to receive the keys. I have received a number of calls from people who after driving by the home questioned the validity of the ad and called me, the actual agent who is on the sign in the front yard.
We do not for sure if he is pulling the listings from Craigslist or some other website. My personal suspicion is that he IS getting them from Craigslist. Needless to say, The Fox Team will no longer be posting listings to Craigslist. I urge everyone to remember not to give anyone your personal information and to remember that while I believe the world and the prople in it are inherently good, there are some very evil people that we need to be aware of.