If a Zillow or Craigslist apartment listing sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Rental scams are becoming increasingly common as bad actors take advantage of people desperate to find an affordable place to live.
A man in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was indicted in September for allegedly conning 15 people out of $22,050 in bogus rental deposits. Most fraud victims lived in Spanish-speaking and immigrant communities, and were in search of affordable housing.
Nationwide, 11,578 people reported losing more than $350 million due to rental scams in 2021, according to the FBI. That’s a 64% increase from the
