I had an incident that happened to one of mysellers this past weekend that I think the rest of the realtors need to knowabout. As part of my advertising, I upload listings to Craig’s list underhousing for sale. My seller received a phone call from a lady that said thather home was listed on Craig’s list for rent. The ad had all of the informationfrom my ad; pictures, address, description, etc. The perpetrator searched theweb to get the seller’s name and created an email address using her name atyahoo.com. The background story was that the husband was being relocated to Africaand they needed to rent the house. In addition to the phone call, my seller hadtwo couples show up at her doorstep wanting to rent the house. I also wascontacted by an agent in my office, who had a client interested in renting.
Here is the contact information that I receivedfrom her buyer client: my contact with him was viaemail....email address is (I have deleted the email address that he used, as itis my seller’s name) and he sentme phone numbers of: +234-702-963-2643(Nigeria) or 011-234-805-803-9541(this number is the number for aNigerian puppy scam).
He stated he was out of town on business....
My seller contacted theState Police and they believe that it is similar to the email scams that we getall the time about someone dying and needing help getting their inheritance.The only thing that they can do is contact Craig’s list and have them take downthe ad.
I intend to check all ofmy listings on Craig’s list to see if they are listed for rent as well as forsale. I suggest that all of us contact our sellers and let them know that thisis happening and that they need to contact us and the police if someonecontacts them. It was very unsettling for my seller to have someone show up ather door wanting to rent her home.