Chatham-Kent Police are warning area residents to be on their guard with another scam making the rounds.
Authorities say rental scams lure in potential renters with photos of a property in a sought-after neighbourhood with a great price on websites like Kijiji or Craigslist.
After a few emails, police say the scammers will ask for a deposit and potentially rush you into making a decision.
Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors advises to do your homework and try to find out if the property has been up for sale or rent before.
“We make every effort to protect clients’ information,” says Executive Director Janice Wieringa. “All photos sent to REALTOR.ca are water marked with our name. However in the event that someone does scrape a photo from another source we recommend the potential renter contact the landlord directly and always see the property in person.”
“Scammers usually use previous ads, so this research helps to ensure it is not a duplicate post,” adds President Michael Gibbons. “If you find a previous post contact the agent or landlord, to verify legitimacy.”
The Canadian Real Estate Association has installed sophisticated software to prevent listings from being scraped from REATOR.ca, but with so many websites that are not authorized, they say it’s impossible to stop it from happening.
For more information about rental scams and how to protect yourself, please see https://www.canada.ca/en/competition-bureau/news/2018/08/rental-scam-no-room-for-error.html
