Such a deal — too bad it’s not for real: Craigslist rental scam persists

LACONIA — Jeff Peyton now knows firsthand the truth of the adage, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Peyton, who is preparing to move from Pennsylvania to take a job in Laconia, was searching online earlier this month for a place to live when he came across a listing on Craigslist for a unit for rent in the Beacon Street West Condominiums downtown.

The header “Awesome, 1 bed rm, 2 ba” caught his eye, as did the price: $550 a month.

The unit boasted tile bathrooms, granite countertops, stainless appliances, even a washer and dryer.

For Peyton it seemed like a good find. Unfortunately, as Peyton was to find out soon afterward, it was too good to be true.

“I didn’t didn’t realize that 700 square feet was worth so much in Laconia,” he said Thursday, explaining why he was not immediately suspicious of the listing.

With apartments in the area in short supply, a one-bedroom apartment in Laconia and vicinity typically rents for around $1,000 a month or more.

But after a few emails back and forth between Peyton and the purported landlord, Peyton said “little yellow flags began popping up.”

One reason for his skepticism was the emails contained broken English and bad grammar. But he became really suspicious because of the response he got after asking for the dimensions of the individual rooms.

“I wanted to make sure my sofa would fit in in the living room,” he said, explaining why he wanted detailed information.

In the reply, the alleged owner said he was out of town, but Peyton was free to go peek through the windows of the unit to see if the rooms were the right size.

At that point Peyton said knew something was fishy.

He did more Google searches and found the same unit was listed on an online real estate marketplace as for sale by its owner for $230,000. He called the owner, who told Peyton the unit was not for rent, only for sale, and that they had not listed the property on Craigslist.

“I stopped well short of doing anything to expose myself financially,” Peyton said.

He added that he checked out Craigslist only because “I was looking for any avenue I could find.”

Apparently a lot of other people do the same thing.

Last June the state Attorney General’s Office put out a notice warning the public after it received several reports of property rental scams through Craigslist.

The scam involves an apartment or house that is offered for rent on the classified ad website.

“The post will often contain significant details about the property, including photos, in an attempt to convince the consumer that the offer is legitimate. Often, the scam artist uses photos and information that are copied from a legitimate posting by the owner of the property,” the AG’s Consumer Protection Division said.

Local people can be lured in by these bogus listings as well.

Last spring, Craig Sikowski of Gilford responded to a Craigslist ad for a place for rent on Little Bear Island in Lake Winnipesaukee.

The place was advertised as being for rent for around $1,500; “reasonable, but not so dirt cheap as to make me immediately suspicious,” Sikowski said.

But he started to get nervous when the supposed owner told him to send communications to an email address that had no apparent relation to the person’s name or business. When Sikowski asked why the odd email address the person replied that his assistant would be handling the payments.

“That was the last straw,” he said

Soon afterward Sikowski, like Peyton, searched the internet more thoroughly and found a listing for the same place on Vrbo, a travel website company, and learned from a family member of the owner that the place was not available for the week he wanted to reserve.

“I was about 10 minutes from hitting the send button,” when he realized he had stumbled across a scam.

According to the AG’s office, when the consumer contacts the person posing as the landlord, the consumer is asked to pay a reservation fee upfront through a bank transfer, Cash App, Pay Pal, or another electronic money transfer service.

While neither Peyton nor Sikowski lost any money, victims of these scams are at high risk of losing their reservation fee, the AG’s Office points out.

The agency advises the public to ask to see the property before sending any money, not to transfer or wire money to someone they do not know, and not to send any payment until the rental agreement is signed and they know that the rental is legitimate.