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Beware of internet housing frauds: Saskatoon woman
With vacancy rates in Saskatchewan cities hovering around one per cent, apartment hunters are being warned about about internet scams.
06/04/2009 12:29:36 PM
CBC News
According to Brenda Jurista of Saskatoon, who has spent months looking for a place to rent, it doesn't take long to find scam artists.
Jurista saw her own daughter's house advertised on the site — months after her daughter had moved in. While looking on the postings on Kijiji, the popular online sales website, she encountered ads for houses that didn't belong to the people trying to sell them.
Jurista says she's lucky, because she has not lost any money herself, but the come-on might be irresistible for others, she said.
"It'll say it's a really cheap rent. Like this one ad, it was $750-a-month rent. Well who's not going to respond to that?" Jurista said.
People familiar with the scams say the people behind the ads promise to send keys once they get a deposit, and then, after money clears, they disappear.
Jurista says she hopes police will take a hard line with such activity.
"People that are going to scam people who can't afford to rent in the first place … I think they should be prosecuted," she said.
In Regina, Rob Deglau, a community co-ordinator with the North Central Community Association, said having the city issue licences for rental homes might be one way to curtail such fraudulent online activity.
"What that would have done is it would have standardized all the places that are legitimately for rent," he said.
"At least people could say, 'What's your licence number?' and would have a recourse and followup, and see if it was a true landlord or not."
Deglau and Jurista both say when the housing market is as tight as it is, it's easy for unsuspecting tenants to get stung.
For its part, Kijiji advises renters not to pay anyone before seeing a place in person.
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07.04.2009 12:20
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