Picture this: You’re hunting for an apartment and finally see an online listing in your price range that sparks your interest. You contact the property manager, file an application, and maybe even visit the property. But after you send them a security deposit and the first month’s rent, things take a turn.
Maybe you’re told that you can’t move in unless you send several hundred dollars for urgent repairs to the apartment. Or maybe the supposed owner sends you a digital key code, but it won’t unlock the door. Or maybe you pay over $1,000 for a week’s accommodations at a hot vacation spot only to find, when you get there, that the property you thought you had rented was never actually up for rental and is in fact a private residence.
All three of these situations are classic rental scams that have already happened to would-be renters in 2022 and were reported to the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker. In a rental scam, someone misrepresents themselves as a property owner or tenant, or lies about the availability and terms of a real property. It’s more common than you might think—more than 11,500 people reported being victims of online real estate or rental scams in 2021, according to the latest FBI data. Collectively, the victims lost more than $350 million.
To discover just how prevalent these scams are across the country, Palm Paradise Real Estate examined data from the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker to see which states have…
