Now that you have had time to read and analyze how the stripper did his dirty deed now it is time to see how to catch the stripper.
Catch The Stripper
Catch The Stripper: What to look out for:
Here is one way to check if a property has been stripped.
- Search the listing website for the property.
- Enter the address of the suspected property.
- Leave the rental or sales amount empty.
- Hit search
- Search Result: Multiple properties listed with the same address.
Very Important: Make sure that you are looking at the same property for the same apartment. Apartment buildings have multiple ads with the same address but different apartment numbers.
What to do next
Once you have established that there are multiple ads for the same apartment/house. Check to see if there are different prices, agents, etc.
Click on the link for the listed real estate company, not the agent. The links should open the website for the agent. If there is no website, it will show a map of the real estate office location. In the event that none of this happens, it is a good chance that this ad is phony.
Contact the website support. Inform them of the suspect ad. Let them know what you did and what you found. They will do the rest.
Two things to keep in mind
- The owner listed property will not have a real estate company attached to the ad.
- Clicking on the agent link will let you send an email to the scammer. I don’t advise doing this. Instead, do the following.
Check out the company
In New York, the Dept of State website allows the public to search any real estate company by name. In this case, the link did lead to a “real estate company”. The company did not have an address or phone number. This is a red flag.
I say “real estate company” because it was listed as that by the hosting site, not the Dept of State.
In New York, real estate companies have to have a phone number and a brick and mortar location–not a P.O. Box. This is a requirement, not an option.
Catching The Stripper: Lastly, Call The Agent
The 601 number in the ad was bogus. It actually belonged to some poor person in Mississippi. This person was getting the calls and pleaded for help in ending them.
Do this if you are still not convinced that the ad is false. Proceed with care and hang up if you don’t like the response you are getting. Again, I do not recommend this. I did it after blocking my number. I was prepared to hang up if the person was hostile.
How I Learned About Stripping
I learned about stripping from an article like this one. The agent was on the west coast. The listing agent received a call from a prospect. The prospect was confused about the different prices for the same property. After a short search, the agent found the ad. This was how the agent found out his listing had been stripped. It is how I found out my ad had been stripped.
The Dreaded Reality Check
No method of catching a scam is perfect. The stripper works on this scam day and night every day. This is their job, your job and mine is anything but. Sadly not all agents are honest. Some have participated in such scams. How do you stop these people? As with anything vigilance is key. Vigilance and common sense.
How We Stopped The Scam
My prospective tenant saw something and said something.
Steps that stopped the scam
-
- The prospective tenant spotted the ad and alerted me.
- I had knowledge of stripping.
- The owner of the property alerted to the ad.
- I alerted the hosting site through a contact I made some time ago.
- He forwarded my alert to the fraud department.
- The fraud department–on a major holiday–pulled the ad.
- They launched their own countermeasures and investigation.
End result: I am getting responses to my ad again. They had stopped while the fraudulent ad was active.
Note to brokers and agents: Sudden drop off in responses to your ad can be an indicator that someone is messing with your ad.
Team Effort Wins Out
As you see it took a team effort to stop this in its tracks. Beginning with a vigilant customer who suspected something was wrong. I can only hope that we moved fast enough. There is no way to know if some else fell prey to this scam.
Scammers can be caught if you stop and think about the deal. Some scams are hard to spot. Other not so much. But guys like this. Come on, there is no way someone like this should be able to scam a smart person like you.
Link To Previous Article: Stripped and Re-listed: Part 2 In the true story of the stripping of my ad
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and nothing stated here is legal advice. This article applies to the five boroughs of New York. All information deemed accurate but not guaranteed. Always check the real estate laws in your part of the country.
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