Rent scam warning

A real estate agent is urging renters to exercise vigilance when seeking a place to live, as scammers have been using listings from his website to deceive potential tenants and rob them of thousands of dollars.

Rohan Scott, a realtor for more than seven years, told The Gleaner that he has noticed an increase in such scams in recent years.

“It used to be one and two, but now I’m getting these calls too often,” he said.

Scott explained that the scammers hijack his property listings and post them to other social media platforms to lure potential victims.

“So, let’s say you give me a place to rent, you give me all your documents, I put it on the system, and then next you know, some scammers take it off... put it on these advertising places, and act like it’s theirs,” he said.

Describing the practice as “rampant”, Scott said it is having a negative impact on his clientele who he said are also victims in these situations.

“I have this client, and she has been scammed so many times. The other day she said somebody came to her house knocking on her door saying that they reached out to somebody to rent the place. (They used) the same procedure I would use; collect all their documents ... they asked for the same thing and get other people information,” he said.

He said the scam victims are then asked to pay the first month’s rent and a deposit and, in some instances, they are told to pay a fee to secure the property for themselves.

Stating that the scam “affects our business, it affects how we are perceived”, Scott told The Gleaner that the reputation of real estate agents like himself is sometimes questioned as a result.

“Most people, they are not familiar with real estate or how it works and when they do reach out to an agent and something like that happens, they’ll think the agent is involved,” he said. It’s the same pictures that the agent took, it’s the same information, so they’ll think it’s us,” he said.

“It puts us in a position where future people, they don’t want to give us their business because of stuff like that. They’ll hear stories like that and they say ‘no’,” he added.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Anthony McLaughlin, who heads the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Division (C-TOC), said the issue of scammers targeting people who are seeking long-term rentals is a recurring one.

“They advertise these places for rent on either TikTok, Instagram, and they’ll say that there are several people who are after it, so it’s a first come, first serve basis. So once they go to the bank and make that deposit… as soon as you upload the receipt, then they’ll block you,” he said.

However, 27-year-old Kyle Dunkley told The Gleaner that it was an advertisement in the media that he responded to in October last year that resulted in him being scammed of $140,000.

Dunkley, who said it was his first time renting an apartment, was pleased when after viewing the one-bedroom property in the Corporate Area he was offered the space.

He explained that the would-be scammers requested his documents, and gave him a contract to sign. After he made payments, two days later with the intention to move into the apartment, they disappeared.

“The Sunday that I was supposed to move, I sent a WhatsApp to see if I should come and pick up the key or whatever, but did not get any response,” he said.

However, he said he did not become worried until in the late afternoon, when he still did not get any reply.

“When it got to about 3 o’clock now, and I was getting nothing, that’s when it dawned on me that ‘this is a scam’,” he said.

He said he later realised that the scammers used an Airbnb to lure their victims as, after making a report to the police, he was told that he was not the only one who fell prey to their scam.

“It was a traumatic experience, especially because that was the first time I was trying to rent a space,” he said. “Because of that, the whole renting process, it became difficult for me to even continue with the process,” he said, adding that he eventually enlisted a realtor.

Meanwhile, McLaughlin said the police are actively engaging with financial entities to uncover fraudsters. He is however also urging people to exercise vigilance.

“Rather than just going and seeing these things and then jump to pay their money, they need to do some due diligence first,” he said, adding that efforts should be made to find out if the person showing the property is the owner or has a legal right to the property.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com