The ad on Craigslist last week sounded too good to be true. A two-bedroom apartment was available in Hoboken for a mere $700 a month, much lower than the usual starting price of around $1,500. This particular unit boasted marble floors, a laundry room, and a sixth-floor window overlooking Washington Street.
But across the country, ads like this one that sound too good to be true usually are. Details in the ads in Hudson County do make them seem legitimate – including the number of blocks the unit is from the local PATH station, and photos of the interior. One recent ad even provided an address on Second Street in Hoboken.
“If any funds are to be exchanged they should be exchanged at the real estate office.” – Margaret Watson
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Then, there was the ad for a $1,000-per-month two-bedroom, also on Craigslist. The Reporter e-mailed the person placing the ad and got this response: “I want to receive the money monthly in my bank account. You can move in the condo in the same day when you receive the keys. The only problem is that I’m the only person who has the keys and I have nobody in the United States that could show you the condo.”
And a third ad drew an e-mail from a landlord who claimed he would be working in West Africa for the next few years and seeks “a neat person or family who has the fear of God and [will] treat the house as his or her own.”
In a hot Hudson County real estate market where people are choosing to rent rather than buy, individuals running scams involving fake apartments have their work cut out for them. The Reporter found three fake rental ads on Craigslist in the past week.
When one responds to the ad, he or she often gets an e-mail response that is written in broken English and provides a foreign, unreachable phone number.
Besides trying to get the prospective tenants to wire money, another scam asks the tenant to get a credit check first by going to a site to pay for a credit report, using a link provided in the e-mail. The scammer apparently gets a commission for bringing traffic to the site.
Law enforcement
Hudson County First Assistant Prosecutor Gaetano Gregory said last week that he hasn’t heard about the scam.
“We haven’t run into it at all,” Gaetano said. “We’ve had investigations that involved things on Craigslist but not in the context of housing scams.”
Renters and buyers are advised on Craigslist to report crimes to the Internet Crime Compliance Center (IC3), a partnership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center.
In 2010, the IC3 received a total of 10,802 complaints in New Jersey, according to an IC3 release. Nearly 40 percent of the people affected by scams lost between $100 and $999.99. The highest complaint involved overpayment fraud and totaled $247,750.
Craigslist provides readers with “common-sense rules.”
“Deal locally with folks you can meet in person – follow this rule and avoid 99 percent of scam attempts on Craigslist,” says the site.
Hoboken tips
Margaret Watson, the broker manager at Liberty Realty of Washington Street, advises people to meet at a real estate office, not at a property site.
“If you have to meet an agent at the property, ask for identification,” Watson said.
Watson added there are two forms of identification that a consumer can ask for: a business card and a real estate-commissioned sales person or broker card (a small green card that licensed agents carry).
Another tip for doing real estate business over the Internet is to never wire money to a person.
“If any funds are to be exchanged, they should be exchanged at the real estate office,” Watson said.
“Most Realtors in agencies use checks,” Watson said. “They’re not going to ask you for your PayPal address.”
Some scams require an application asking for the disclosure of personal information. Watson said applications are not uncommon in the real estate business, but applications should be handed over or completed at a real estate office.
If someone comes across an advertisement that may seem suspicious, Haney Ahmed, an agent at Chelsea Realty, said to ask basic questions to the seller.
“If they say they can’t give out a lot of information about the property, just ask what the nearest grocery store is,” Ahmed said. “If they can’t answer that, there’s a red flag. Most of the scams take place before there are any showings of the properties.”
Ahmed said Chelsea Realty does use Craigslist, and buyers should try to find and identify a broker’s name and phone number on a posting so there is some accountability.
A majority of the time, the scammers simply look for personal information, such as credit card or bank account numbers, personal information, Social Security numbers, or a favorite password, according to Ahmed.
Before proceeding with any real estate deal, Ahmed advises residents to do their homework.
“You want to find the address, check it out, and do as much due diligence as you can,” Ahmed said. “Punch the address into Google and make sure it exists.”
Ahmed said if an agent says the deal must take place right away, it should raise a red flag.
Ahmed said that potential renters should also run a check on sellers.
“They’re asking you about personal information; you should do the same,” he said.
Some smaller scams ask readers to pay for a cheap credit report.
“They’ll say they need to run a credit check and it’s going to cost $50,” Ahmed said. “And that’s the scam.”
He said that people are so busy preparing to move that they get caught off-guard.
“Some people get ripped off for $50 or $100, and they catch you at a vulnerable time,” he said. “What are you going to focus on, the $50 or the moving van?”
The best advice from Hoboken real estate agents is to deal locally at a real estate office, and never to wire money over the Internet.
Websites like Snopes.com often list various scams that are popular. Put “Craigslist rental” into the search engine on that site and you get: “This type of fraud commonly pops up in the form of rental scams, perpetrated by crooks who copy Craigslist postings (or other online ads) for rental properties, change some of the details (such as lowering the price to make the offer more attractive and altering the contact information)… The phony ‘landlords’ send replies…offering excuses about why they aren’t available to show the properties in person.”
Ray Smith may be reached at RSmith@hudsonreporter.com.