Rental scams:
Rental scams are based on the need of the victim to find a house / apartment / office to rent and it involves advertisments posted online. The scammers are fraudulently advertising a property that is not available, or not lawfully owned by the advertiser, and they try to extract money from replies using advanced fee fraud schemes. Most of the victims proceed, even if a deal looks too good to be true, convinced by confident reassurances from the scammers.
Online rental scams operated on the Internet are mostly based on emails and phone calls. There are two ways this type of fraud works;
Against the people searching for renting a place:
In this case the fraudsters post ads on free sites such as the classifieds or they use their own fake sites to advertise properties they don't own. The fraudsters steal details and images of the other people properties from reputable sites and reuse those details and images. The victim responding to one of the fake ads or fake sites offering the property, will be asked to wire the first month’s rent, a deposit, and / or other security deposits. This will usually be through a wire transfer system (Money Gram, Western Union or similar). The victim will lose the money because the property doesn't belong to the person asking for the money.
Against the owners willing to rent:
In the second case the owner, contacted by a fraudster pretending to search for a rental, will receive a check for a higher amount as discussed - "by mistake" - and he will be asked to wire the difference to the sender. The victim will end up as a money mule or as a victim of a fake check scam.