Fake Gumtree rental ads

[sean1967]

Article in todays paper
Re scammers taking Houses for Rental ads from Realestate.com and then putting them on Gumtree.

One was from a Malaysian scammer who asked for the bond to be wired.

Pretty ovious a scam when someone asks for bond money to be wired !


http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/malaysianbased-fraudsters-place-fake-gumtree-ads-to-scam-queensland-renters/story-fnihsrf2-1226699057918

 

[wylie]

Some of the people who look on Gumtree might not be thinking it is obvious. Until I was scammed on eBay many years ago, I had no idea.

And we've had this issue with Gumtree. Four years ago we had our advert stolen and used to scam money. One person lost about $700 and another nearly lost money. Worse still, these people were knocking on the door of the house wanting to know what was going on. Our male tenant had moved with the single young woman to follow him when house was packed up. It frightened her badly.

Lesson for me was to be suspicious of most things that come via email and be very careful.

 

[Lil Skater]

Unfortunately it happens all too often!

There's little you can do, except include a water mark across photographs of your properties.

 

[Prop_Perspectiv]

Ohhh, the watermark is a great tip!

There are quite a few gumtree scams going on at the moment. I generally won't deal with anyone on the site unless I have spoken to them on the phone. Still isn't a garantee though.

 

[wylie]

I'm not sure that a watermark would help. In the situation we found ourselves in, some scammer grabbed our photos and address but advertised it as a unit (from memory). It seemed at the time he had grabbed our photos plus the text from another Gumtree advert and put them together.

How would putting a watermark on our photo stop a prospective tenant from knowing it is a scam? (I'm sure I'm missing something here.)

And how can I get a watermark onto my photos if I ever want to do that?

 

[jkat]

I don't know how to put a watermark on photos so no help there -- but if the place is being managed by a real estate agent maybe putting their logo as the watermark so people could contact them? Then they would be told that it is a scam...?

If you are self managing I don't know what type of watermark you could use to protect yourself/others from being scammed.

 

[Lil Skater]

For self managers maybe put a watermark using an email address across it? Straight smack bang in the middle so it can't be cropped out.

As for agents using it to ensure the company name is on there, that way if it's advertised on Gumtree it's easy to see if it's a scam or not.

You can just do it in photoshop. Probably paint or other programs similar too. It's just inserting a faint image onto a photo.

Of course it's not fool proof, but I don't know how many scammers can be bothered fiddling with photoshop. At least it can put them off.