I received a voicemail yesterday that went like this: Hi, my name is xxx. I was supposed to meet Sisco at 5:10. The time is now 7:12. Blah,blah, blah

You guys have $1500 of my money so I need resolution this evening or we’re going to pursue the police because I can’t tell if I’m being scammed or not. Show up her and sign the lease with me or refund my money. Call xxx-xxxx

I called her, and encouraged her to call police.

She told me that her credit is bad and couldn’t get approved anywhere.

This isn’t the first time a scammer used my ads , but I got a bit more insight into the victims…..the victim always sounds suspicious, like the scam may somehow benefit them…this one just sounded like landlord screening has the deadbeats getting fed to the scammers.

So, an actual human scammer instead of a bot or robo-dialer ... impressive! they're starting to WORK for their ill-gotten gains.

You know my philosophy: "All calls go to voicemail..." which did happen in this scenario, but then there's the rest of it "...to be returned at my convenience."

Implied in that is ".... or never returned."

In your case, I would have simply deleted it. Nothing to gain out of returning the call. Anything you say can and may be manipulated to be used against you. With sophisticated computers in everyone's hand and voice recording software, they could take your voice samples and string them into something like, "Yeah, I have your money but I'm not renting to you because you're (insert a member of a protected class)."

Simply not worth it because again, nothing to gain. You know that you scammed no one. No reason to convince someone else of something you already know, unless it's a judge or jury.

Thanks for sharing Sisco

How did she pay the scammer?

Sisco,

Were your photos watermarked with your contact info?

Can you track how they were contacted delivered the money, but then knew to call you?

Another reason for me to get mine watermarked.

Not sure that I can while they are on the website and I have the backups stored in multiple places as I didn't take all of them.

Still a perfect reason for me to get it done.

I use to watermark mine but honestly... the scammers don't care... the literally use the SAME PHOTO... I've seen them.

I responded to one ad (years ago) about it and questioned the watermark... their response was "we are out of town/country (whatever) and we didn't have time to take pics and we asked someone to take pics for us and they watermarked them... just ignore it, you are speaking with the owner.

I feel helpless when someone is scammed by using my props because it is the CONSUMER's actions, not mine.

I've had them print a lease with OUR name on it and take cash.

Maybe more news reports of these scams will help educate people.

A local LL puts his face photo on his ads saying THIS is the only person to lease and collect funds. But the scammer could do the same.

I decided that if someone called me a scammer and wanted proof I would have them contact the city water department. Two small towns where I have places know me and know my places.