A Los Angeles resident was arrested final week for allegedly working a rental rip-off that netted her over $200,000 from unsuspecting victims, Los Angeles Instances registered.
Surong Li, 29, of Irvine, California, allegedly posed as a property supervisor and entered into leases with tenants of properties she didn’t legitimately signify. To hold out the scheme, Lee both fully fabricated the existence of the rental properties or did not switch the funds to the true property homeowners, in line with regulation enforcement.
Lee faces a number of costs, together with grand theft, possession of false identification and theft by false pretenses.
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Sadly, scams like this are usually not unusual.
In June, Jonathan Daugherty, an actual property agent in Jacksonville, Florida, discovered duplicates of his property on housing boards on websites like Craigslist and Fb, News4Jax reported.
Scammers lured hopeful candidates and charged charges and deposits of as much as $500, regardless of having no actual connection to actual property. Daugherty alerted the police and took the mandatory precautions, comparable to posting indicators on the property to warn renters to not contact random people, and that there was “just one manner” to hire the property.
How you can keep away from actual property fraud
To guard in opposition to such scams, the Federal Commerce Fee recommends a number of methods together with:
- Actual property inspection in particular person or just about
- ID verification of rental brokers
- Checking tax evaluation web sites for personal landlords
- Be cautious of unusually low rental costs
- Chorus from sharing private or monetary info
- Avoiding sure cost strategies comparable to reward playing cards and cryptocurrencies