CountyRealty 

Jackson County Rentals 

Beware of Scams!!

Rentals in Jackson County are not the easiest to find.  Demand is very high and supply is pretty low; sometimes there are few to no rentals available at any price.  Finding a rental is a competitive sport!  Sometimes folks get desperate. 

Many folks reading this now have come through my Facebook group: Seymour Indiana Homes for Sale/Rent.  (Link) I've been running this group for several years now and I have a few thousand members.    While the great majority of postings are legitimate, sadly not all of them are.  

Some folks want to try to defraud others by scamming them.  I report these folks to the police, discuss the postings, then remove the post when law enforcement give the okay to do so.  I have no tolerance for thieves and over the years I've reported several.

What to watch out for:  A typical scam post will offer a desirable unit, at a great price, paying the utilities as part of the rent, allowing pets - offering anything/everything to a would-be tenant (tenant) for a modest monthly rental.  The address of the property is likely missing.

When tenant expresses an interest in viewing the property, two things will likely happen.  First, the scammer won't exchange any more messages on posts but will ask the tenant to use the PM function in order to hide their action on this.  (They may have 2, 3, a dozen?, likely victims to string along, and they don't want the others to know what's going on.)  

Secondly,  you will be told that you are welcome to visit the home and peek in the windows, but the owner/landlord "can't make it" and won't be there.    Tenant visits and peeks in the windows and is delighted with what they see.  They contact scammer for the next step.

The owner will try to scam tenant out of personal information, such as rental application data which often includes (but is not limited to) date of birth and social security numbers.  For the "tenants convenience" the scammer will let them text that info to the scammers phone. They might have a paper application to exchange via email, but most prefer the text message method.   Slick scammers will get all of your personal information this way.  They may ask for a rental application and even write up a bogus lease for you to sign then send back to them.  

Next, the scammer tells the tenant that they have some sort of reason to not be in town for the next few days/weeks. They will not be able to be there to deliver the keys to the rental.  They helpfully offer to Fed/Ex or UPS or overnight the keys to you as soon as they receive funds from you; funds that you overnight to them or send via Western Union or other money processor.  Below is an example:

That money that you sent them for that home that was too good to be true - is long gone!

So now, not only do you NOT have a new place to move into; you also do not have a big chunk of money necessary to move anywhere!!  

Now you understand what not to do - so don't fall for it!!  

If you are a landlord/owner; legitimate folks will provide the address of the unit with the original post, and also include a contact phone number.  I also ask them to state if they are the owner/landlord just to be clear.  Legitimate landlords/owners appreciate why I ask for that information; but fraudsters complain about it.  What I don't tolerate is someone "posting for a friend" because this post could also be fraudulent.  

Ask the "friend" to join the group and post for themselves.  

Hope this helps!

Steve Freeman, Broker/Owner