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Fraud Prevention Tips

Apartment Hunters has recently received numerous emails from various guest and clients asking us for advice on the following matters and rather than addressing each individual case we have decided to address the general situations at large. Naturally your situation might be different than listed, and you should make your own final decisions, however, we are offering some general advice in some cases that our guests have shared with us.

We should Approach it Problem , It can Hurt you , how we can help you.

People that are moving in town from out of state and are attempting to rent a place without first viewing and inspecting the property.

Do Not attempt to Rent a Property From Out of State without first Inspecting it. Landlords requesting that you send Cashier's Checks in advance of viewing the property.

Under No Circumstance should ever wire money without having met the landlord and having physically inspected the premises and lease documentation.

You may also encounter fraudulent emails after responding to an ad on non- Monitored Sites, or other online listing services, typically the landlord advertises the property at significantly below the market value in order to garner interest. We screen our landlords to make sure that are customers are dealing with reputable managers and management companies.

Some sites advertise units in the newspaper below the market price , in the hopes of enticing the customers to join their service, to see a sample , look in L.A. Weekly. If it's too good to be true it probably is. People there are no $650.00 one bedroom apartment on the Westside.

Some sites advertise a higher number of Listings than they actually have in order to entice you to join. Their guest search includes a list of roommates and shares, hotels, motes, weekly rentals, and garages and storage sheds in order to show a higher number of results. When you have actually joined your number f results are actually drastically reduced.

Some sites claim they list exclusive listings. These exclusive listings are generally shared accommodations. Please be aware, who wants to share a studio, one bath for $600 with someone of opposite sex that they do not know in a strange city in a strange part of town.

Some services claim they have One-on-one assistance at their premises. Question? Is this service by a qualified person in a dignified manner or you being yelled at from afar from behind the counter by some high school graduate that is still living at his or her parent's home.

Here are some other signs of recognizing scams:

Make sure the landlord or manager is associated with the building , otherwise you may find that too often the manager is unavailable to speak via phone.

Some sites own weekly Hotels and motels at $450.00-$600.00/week and have no real interest in helping the prospective tenant look for rental. Their real incentive is to keep in the motel and keep you looking for a rental rather than help you end your search and into your new home.

Some sites charge additional fees usually $10.00 for a second person in the same family to look in on the listings so you end up paying $70.00 for a 60 day membership which makes your effective cost $1.16 /day.

Overview:

While the majority of the apartment listings on the internet are legitimate, one should be aware that certain individuals and or rental listing services are posting listings for the sole purpose of scamming potential renters.

Avoid ads that are «too good to be true» with rents that are significantly below the market value lures uses by scam artists. In general we recommend that you check other general listings in the vicinity and see what the going rates are for apartments in similar size and amenities.

Always see the apartment in person before sending any money or before providing any personal information such as your driver's license and social security number, even if to fill out an application .You should avoid doing business with overseas landlords unless you have personally verified their identity and that they actually own the apartment advertised.

Dealing locally in person with the landlord or manager is the best to communicate with the landlord. Be wary of the landlord that only wants to communicate via email.

Be careful of offers of Discounted Telephone and Cable/Satellite Setup as the sites that offer these service generally get a rebate (Kick-Back) from the company that offers the service as well as they very often jeopardize your personal information as were they collect this information from you by is not regulated by law to be on a secure socket layer (SSL) certified page.