A sunny apartment at a price too good to be true. An SMS offering a loan to repay the rent debt linked to the pandemic. Or a sudden phone call promising a grant to avoid eviction – for a small initial fee.
Welcome to the world of housing scams in the COVID-19 era.
In expensive rental markets like the Bay Area, poorly detailed apartment scams and heavy pressure to hand over deposits is nothing new. But recent alerts from financial watchdogs and data on rental housing programs point to a rapidly changing landscape for California renters trying to navigate the frenzied housing pandemic market, where some tenants are struggling to deleverage while that others benefit from reduced rents.
New Apartment Guide report reveals that from January 2015 to May 2021, California was home to three of the top five cities in the country for reported rental scams per capita: # 1 Los Angeles, # 3 San Francisco, and # 4 San Diego. The report also found that the busy summer moving season tends to be the costliest, when median losses exceeded $ 19,000 per victim.
This year the timing couldn’t be worse. After a slow start to California’s unprecedented $ 5.2 billion pandemic rent relief program, officials are begging tenants to seek help before the 30’s eviction moratorium expires. September. But tenant advocates warn that a growing array of scams can hamper these efforts.
“It’s really brutal trying to prove that you’re not just trying to get information about people and take advantage of them,” said Leora Tanjuatco Ross, associate director of the San County Housing Leadership Council. Mateo.
Even before the pandemic, Tanjuatco Ross said his nonprofit was hearing more skepticism from tenants exhausted by years of rising costs and intense competition for housing. And now, dozens of community groups across the state have been recruited to help pump rent relief funds through a maze of federally funded city, county and state programs.
Last week, the state’s main rent relief program provided $ 282 million in financing to 23,760 households, according to the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency – a fraction of the 807,000 households that National Equity Atlas believes he is behind on the rent. When adding small bay area and town rent relief programs, only 10% of the nearly $ 900 million in funds available for the area had been disbursed by mid-July.
Now, efforts to speed up those payments are coming up against recent warnings from watch groups about the crooks changing tactics as pandemic rental protections begin to expire.
“Con artists often take advantage of the confusion and stress surrounding major events,” the Better Business Bureau explained in an Aug. 6 alert. “As the moratorium on evictions draws to an end, beware of con artists who offer loans, sell credit repair services or promote government programs. “
The Better Business Bureau’s scam tracker, which is just a snapshot based on consumer reports, has identified over 50 rental and moving scams in the Bay Area and 144 across California since the start of COVID-19 lockdowns in March 2020. They range from two roommates in Oakland who said they lost $ 4,190 after visiting an apartment by sending money for a deposit via a cash app to a person at Los Angeles who paid $ 499 for an eviction defense service that never materialized.
One of the challenges is that the range of rental scams in California has already exploded in recent years, going far beyond the usual attempts to trick apartment seekers to wire money to unknown recipients. . Now crooks can assure their targets that they don’t need Social Security numbers, just a credit report. Or they’re reposting photos of recently sold or rented homes on more regulated websites like Zillow, Vrbo or Airbnb, prosecutors in Santa Cruz County and elsewhere have warned.
Last year, the FBI’s Cybercrime Division reported over 13,600 confirmed victims of rental and real estate scams in the United States, making them less prevalent than credit card schemes but more common than health care schemes. In total, real estate scams have cost victims more than $ 213 million.
Around the Bay Area, rental scams have also taken hold in areas reeling from fires and, more recently, in places with an influx of remote workers. Take a three-bedroom bungalow in Santa Cruz with a white picket fence advertised for $ 3,600 per month last week on Craigslist and $ 4,600 per month on Zillow.
Find out if you qualify for legitimate state, county or regional rent relief programs by visiting www.housing.ca.gov, texting “rent” to 211211, or calling (833) 430-2122.
Never agree to pay fees for help with free rent relief programs, or to give your social security number, bank account number or credit card number to anyone. one who contacts you.
If you hear of an organization offering rent assistance, search their name online with the words “scam,” “fraud,” or “complaint” to see what others are saying.
California’s ban on evictions for non-payment of rent lasts until September 30. Tenants’ lawyers recommend following the “three S’s rule” if you receive an eviction notice: stay home, submit a COVID-19 hardship report to your landlord, and rent relief.
Report suspected rent relief scams to www.reportfraud.ftc.gov or your local district attorney’s office.
“I can’t show you around in person right now,” the Craigslist poster said, instead offering an elaborate out-of-state cancer treatment story and a picture of a driver’s license. with the same address in Santa Cruz.
“Yes, it’s a scam,” said Scott Joly, the real estate agent trying to rent the actual home.
Lauren Hepler is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @LAHepler
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