October 18th, 2012
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A Rental Scam Has Resurfaced in Grande Prairie
According to Grande Prairie real estate agents, the low vacancy rate for rental properties has led to a new scam.
What’s the Scam?
It involves scammers pretending to be landlords and ripping off renters.
How Does the Scam Work?
Grande Prairie real estate agent John Rudyk explains it this way. Scammers will search online for houses that are for sale and vacant. Then they set up fake adverts on places such as Kijiji and Craigslist saying “the place is for rent.”
A similar fraud occurred in Lethbridge in August.
Landlords and student tenants also experienced this type of scam in Ontario over the summer.
What a Nasty Trick!
Yes. Rudyk goes on to say the scam is attractive to renters because the rental price is lower than all the other ‘real’ houses up for rent.
How Can Tenants Protect Themselves from the Scammers?
Rudyk wants tenants to know real landlords will always meet you in person, or have their representative meet you.
Sadly, this not only hurts tenants, it also hurts the reputation of all the great landlords out there.
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Landlords and Tenants in Grande Prairie and all over Alberta be aware of yet another scam out to bilk you out of thousands of dollars!
Tags: Rental property, scam
