A few years ago, the Las Cruces Police Department reported that three local families had fallen victim to rental fraud. In one case, a family who was relocating to Las Cruces from California was scammed out of $1,000 while trying to rent a home listed on Craigslist. In another report, an NMSU student was conned out of $500.00 by someone pretending to be the owner of a property.
This is not breaking news. Both the Office of the Attorney General and LCPD have asked landlords and tenants to be especially diligent when transacting business to rent or lease a home. The warnings apply to both landlords and tenants because both are subject to being scammed. Here are a couple of examples of how the rip-offs are perpetrated.
In Taos, a landlord became suspicious when he received a check for $5,000 from a Craigslist rental applicant who was only required to tender a deposit of $1,500. The prospective renter later emailed the landlord to say that his “sponsor” had uncovered the overpayment “situation” and instructed the landlord to wire transfer the $3,500 difference to a furniture company that was handling the move for the tenant. As you might have guessed, the prospective tenant’s check was bogus. The landlord was lucky that he uncovered the scheme before sending the perpetrator $3,500 of his hard-earned wages.
In another case, an Albuquerque man nearly fell victim to rental fraud when he responded to a Craigslist ad for a two-bedroom, two-bath home in the Northeast…
