As a real estate virtual assistant part of the listing coordination services I provide is posting my client’s home listings on the many internet listing sites, Craig’s List being one of them. I was alerted today that someone was taking real estate home listing posts and changing  them into rentals and stealing rent money from people. A woman who responded to one of my clients listings received a suspicious email response and looked further into it. She tracked down my client and alerted her to the scam. Before I could get on Craig’s List to find out what was going on, my client called me again. Someone had just gone to the address of the listing, wanting to move in. They had paid someone on Craig’s List the rent money for immediate  occupancy to this property. I contacted “Abuse” at Craig’s List” and within five minutes the post was removed. This is terrible for the real estate professionals who post their listings on Craig’s List.

I have now added another task to my listing coordination checklist, monitor and check internet property posts daily. Even a daily Google search of the address would help to alert you of something like this that may be happeneing. I have Google Alerts set up for every one of my clients listings, you would be surprised as to what comes back through those alerts.