Beware fake rental ads for Park Slope!....a landlord's account.

landlord

Recently I went to visit my building in Park Slope. In the lobby was one of my tenants with a young guy I never met before. My tenant pointed me out and said "he is the landlord". The young guy walked over to me and introduced himself. He said that he was there to see the apartment I had for rent. I told him that I don't have any apartments available at this time. He got very upset and said that the broker scheduled an appointment between him and I and accused me of lying. I asked him if he gave the broker any money to which he said he did. I told him it was a scam and to never give money to anyone until he signs a lease and sees the apartment. He walked out of the building very upset.

goodprospect

Thanks for posting this, landlord! We just had a similar experience. We had a vacancy and posted ads on Craigslist for our open houses.....we had two or three brokers steal our pictures and post it in the "apartments by owner" section with their own contact info. One brokerage took $500 from a group of girls who applied (cash only, of course), promising that their 'deposit' would 'take the apartment off the market.' As you would expect, that was a misrepresentation, since we were not interested in those particular applicants. This broker, from Rapid Realty, returned $150 of it to them after getting pressure from the girls' parents. They kept $350 "for running the credit reports."

I don't know how anyone in this city for more than 5 minutes falls for these scams, but the real estate agents seem to come up with a new one every week.

armchair_warrior

Once A tenant called me to tell me some strange dude trying to get in the building, Saying the Landlord wanted to rent out the apt above them. I told girl don't let the guy in.

Obviously I show my own apartments. Some people will try to make money off other people all the time.

In the past some folks from rapid reality try to ask me for the keys for the apartment. I was like I'm not even interested in showing it to you or your clients. Why would I give you the keys?

They try to pitch to me I don't have to pay them anything. I said to them how are they going to make money, since they also claim not to take any fee's from tenants either. I still don't understand how some renters still go with them.