Renters and owners, beware

If that three-bedroom Siesta Key house advertised for $200 a week seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Joel Fried has had at least three different inquiries from people eager to rent his three-bedroom Siesta Key home. Two showed up at his door, check in hand. That would be good news if Fried were a prospective landlord, but he isn’t interested in becoming one.

Since 2014, Fried has been the auxiliary victim of a scam that targets prospective renters. His house appears sporadically for rent on Craigslist. Occasionally, someone arranges or nearly arranges to rent it remotely.

Because scams are often run from out of state or overseas, keeping enforcement out of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office jurisdiction, perpetrators of the scam are difficult to pin down.

And even if Fried reports or flags the ads, they pop up again weeks or months later.

Fried said an acquaintance on Siesta had a similar experience.

“It’s more common than you think,” Fried said.

Wendy Rose, spokeswoman for the SCSO, said there is one active investigation into the scam on Siesta Key, for the Sheriff's Office has submitted subpoenas to gather information, including the location from which the ad was placed. 

Rose said there have been a handful of other cases reported during the holidays in which ads were placed from other jurisdictions. In those cases, the Sheriff's Office passes along information to law enforcement officials in those areas.

The Sheriff's Office doesn't classify rental scams with a specific code until information is available about the case, which isn't always right away. That makes it difficult to track trends for such cases; often, they are initially classified as miscellaneous/public service until more information is available. Cases are updated once information is gathered, but only if they fall in the SCSO’s jurisdiction, she said.

There is little homeowners can do to prevent becoming part of the scam, according to Rose, other than using search features like Google alerts to notify them when their address comes up in an ad. She also encouraged prospective renters not to send cash or wire money, because checks are easier to trace to the recipient.

Both Rose and Fried encouraged renters to use legitimate property rental service providers.

Fried has resigned himself to checking Craigslist periodically and flagging and reporting suspicious ads.

“You have to be relatively vigilant,” he said. “I check weekly.”

He also encouraged people to compare prices to the surrounding area and be weary of the too-good-to-be-true listings.

“It’s not hard to tell which ones are fraudulent,” he said. “I wish people would be more responsible consumers.”