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You can’t believe your good fortune—you find a rental home in a
nice area through a Craigslist classified ad at an unbelievably low rate. The
landlord—who had to leave the country and travel to Nigeria—asks that you wire
him two months’ worth of rent. You arrive at the home on the agreed-upon date,
but there’s just one small problem—the house is not actually for rent and its
owners know nothing about your agreement.
This latest scam being perpetrated by Nigerian criminals located
halfway around the world has been seen in a number of U.S. states, perhaps in
response to the current housing market—with fewer people buying, more people are
renting.
But it’s not really a new scam, just a variation of an old
one. The so-called 419
scheme—named after the Nigerian penal code section under which this
particular kind of fraud is prosecuted—has been around since the early 1980s.
The common thread running through these kinds of scams? The victims are
solicited by Nigerian criminals to transfer money out of the U.S. and into the
criminals’ pockets…usually by being promised something in return. And these
schemes
are profitable, costing victims millions of dollars
annually.
In South Carolina, the rental scam problem has become so prevalent that
Columbia FBI Special Agent in Charge David Thomas recently
issued a
warning about it to homeowners and prospective renters, particularly
in the Charleston, Columbia, and Hilton Head areas. The scam has also ensnared
victims in Rhode Island, Illinois, Colorado, and California, among other
states.
How exactly does the rental housing scam work? The
criminals search websites that list homes for sale. They take the information in
those ads—lock, stock, and barrel—and post it, with their own e-mail address, in
an ad on Craigslist (without Craigslist’s consent or knowledge) under the
housing rentals category. To sweeten the pot, the houses are almost always
listed with below-market rental rates.
An interested party will contact the “homeowner” via e-mail, who usually
explains that he or she had to leave the U.S. quickly because of some missionary
or contract work in Africa. Victims are usually instructed to send money
overseas—enough to cover the first and last month’s rent—via a wire transfer
service (because the crooks know it can’t be traced once it gets picked up on
the other end).
Renters might sometimes be asked to fill out credit applications asking for
personal information like credit history, social security numbers, and work
history. The Nigerian crooks can then use this info to commit identity fraud and
steal even more money from their victims.
How to avoid being victimized:
- Only deal with landlords or renters who are local;
- Be suspicious if you’re asked to only use a wire transfer service;
- Beware of e-mail correspondence from the “landlord” that’s written in poor
or broken English;
- Research the average rental rates in that area and be suspicious if the rate
is significantly lower;
- Don’t give out personal information, like social security, bank account, or
credit card numbers.
If you suspect a scam, have already been victimized, or know someone who has
fallen victim to a scam,
please report it to our
Internet Crime
Complaint Center to help us determine the extent of the problem.
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