Protecting Yourself From Scammers
April 15th, 2009
Scams and fraud online is unfortunately becoming increasingly popular. The rental market is not immune to this and we’ve seen an increase in apartment rental scams. It is therefore becoming increasingly important for landlords and property managers to protect themselves from scammers.
The most common scam against landlords is sending too much money. What ever their excuse they end up sending too much money, often via Western Union, and then ask you to send back the remaining amount. Don’t fall for this. If anyone tries to send you money via Western Union it’s a good chance that it’s a scammer. In most cases it will be wise to ignore this person.
Common Sense Rules To Protect You From Scammers
- Use a system that will hide your email address. Rentmore.ca does one better, where we also block known scammers and certain countries that are known as high risk scam countries. It’s absolutely free to use this system.
- Only deal with local tenants. Meet the person you are renting to.
- Do reference checks! Even if you are not worried about scammers, reference checks is a key component in finding a good tenant.