Greg's Corner

Zillow not immune to rental scams

By Greg Collier

When we talk about rental scams, victims typically find fraudulent listings on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. These are where rental scammers frequently post rental listings that they’ve stolen from legitimate realtor listings. The scammers then claim to be the landlords of the properties while falsely collecting things like application fees, security deposits, and first month’s rent. Since neither of those platforms are regularly monitored for rental scams, it’s easy for rental scammers to find victims.

One platform we don’t often talk about when it comes to rental scams is Zillow. As a matter of fact, we often recommend using sites like Zillow as a guideline to see whether a rental listing is fraudulent or not. While Zillow is more reliable than Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, it seems their listings shouldn’t necessarily be taken as gospel.

A woman from New York recently moved her family to North Carolina to find somewhere more affordable to live. She had found a listing on Zillow that was perfect. She contacted the person who Zillow said was the property owner. The man she communicated with was even able to get her into the home by providing the lock box code. However, the supposed property owner kept pressuring the woman by saying there were a lot of other interested renters and if she wanted to rent the property, she needed to act now. The woman transferred a $2000 deposit to the man. She went to the home expecting the man to show up with the keys, but instead a realtor showed up with a client. It was then she found out she had been scammed.

When asked for comment, a Zillow representative stated that they go to great lengths to monitor for scams and provide scam prevention tips for users.

If you’re looking to rent a house or apartment anytime soon, Zillow is a good tool to use, but should not be the only one you use. The best way to find out who actually owns a property is by check with the county’s tax office. Even if a potential landlord gives you the code to a property’s lockbox, that doesn’t necessarily make them the landlord. Scammers have been posing as customers of realtors in order to get the lockbox code. Lastly, if a landlord asks for the deposit through apps like Zelle and Venmo, or wire transfer, there’s a good chance they’re a scammer.