HOUSTON – Looking to help a friend who'd recently had a house fire, Lisa Carmichael went online to Craigslist to find a rental home in their Heights neighborhood.
"Knowing how busy she was going to be dealing with the insurance and fire, I wanted to assist in getting a short term lease for them while they dealt with that," Carmichael said.
Within a matter of clicks, she'd found what looked like the perfect deal.
"It was amazing when I came across this ad," Carmichael said. "The ad had beautiful pictures of this California-style bungalow."
The unbelievable price for this beautiful bungalow in this highly sought after Heights neighborhood was only $800 a month.
There was just one problem: The person offering to rent this home to Carmichael was not the real owner of the property.
"I left a voicemail. No response," Carmichael said. "Then all of a sudden, probably six hours later, they start texting me. (They said) they were no longer in town. They moved away. They were in Florida. If I wanted to see the place, I would need to mail them money, and they would mail me the key."
"They wanted $800 for first month's rent and $500 deposit," Carmichael added.
There was no credit check or application necessary. All Carmichael had to do was wire the $1,300, and they'd send her the key.
Suspecting she'd stumbled upon a scam, Carmichael reached out to Marianne Terrell, a friend and Realtor.
Terrell, of Boulevard Realty, thought this "landlord" Carmichael had been speaking with smelled fishy the moment Carmichael contacted her about it.
"If someone doesn't ask you for an application, that's a big red flag in my book," Terrell said.
Terrell confirmed the home in the picture was on the market for lease, but not for $800. The listing should not have been on Craigslist.
"My first reaction, honestly, was, 'Why are you on Craigslist?'" Terrell asked.
Terrell advises prospective renters to log onto the Houston Association of Realtors website, where they can find legitimate listings of rental homes.
"There are so many rules and guidelines that go into it. Realtors have to abide by these rules. If not, they get fined," Terrell said.
To spot fraud
Once Carmichael discovered the listing was a scam, she decided to have a little fun with the phony landlord. She promised to send them cash if they would send her a copy of the lease first.
What Carmichael received back was comical. The letterhead on the lease is from the "Chamber of Lawyers" and has a picture of a man in a wig.
"The pet clause was pretty funny. Tenants may keep one aquarium with fish 100 gallons and one cat," Carmichael said. "Next sentence, tenant shall keep any other pet, if he or she wishes to. Doesn't that just contradict the first sentence?"
Carmichael traced the phone number of the phony landlord back to an Illinois cellphone. The address they gave her was traced to a business in Florida.
She still doesn't know exactly who is the other person, but Carmichael has a simple warning for others searching for rental homes.
"If it just doesn't feel right, they need to investigate or walk away," Carmichael said.
There is no fee to use a licensed realtor to rent a home. They are paid commissions by the homeowners.
However, for anyone who does decide to find a rental property on their own, there are still steps one can take to make sure the person to whom they are speaking with is the actual owner of the property.
Visit hcad.org, then click on the record search link. Once on the record search link page, use the mouse to drop down to "real property search." From there, people can search the database by name or address to determine if the person they are in contact with as the prospective landlord is the same name listed as the homeowner on record.