A man in the Suffolk County section of New York’s Long island who falsely claimed to be a realtor was arrested for scamming people out of tens of thousands of dollars for rental properties.
ABC7NY.com reported 24-year-old Christian Anderson, who also went by the alias Benjamin Conyers, found rental properties online in the towns of Mastic and Mastic Beach and then relisted them on a social media website with the fraudulent claim that he was the realtor for the properties. Police said that Anderson held meetings with people who responded to his postings in bank parking lots and gave them fake residential contracts and keys in exchange for cash deposits.
The victims realized they were scammed when they arrived at the properties to discover the keys didn’t work or the housing was occupied. Anderson blocked or deleted his social media account and ignored communications from his victims after being paid.
Anderson was charged with two counts of grand larceny and a scheme to defraud.
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Well, I am not shocked by the scammer, but I am shocked by the scammed.
Why would anyone give a deposit without ever seeing the rental property?
That is some kind of stupid. Sorry, that sounds harsh, but really?
What were these renters thinking?
And remember that scammers can lease office buildings to appear totally legit, so do your homework on the realtor, the brokerage, the state licensing board, and, for the love of having a brain, go inside the property that is being offered for rent before you give any deposit or sign a contract.
I hope the scammer is forced to work to pay off his victims, but the victims should be required to go to common sense school as a condition of being reimbursed.
I’m a licensed Broker and property manager. I’m assuming the people didn’t have a great credit history and were happy that someone would give them a home to rent. No credit check or employment verification and the folks needing to rent a home got scammed.
Yeah, preach on. He is a criminal, but they are dumb and very naive.
We need not blame victims of a crime. Their intentions were likely good. Scammers are being very creative and holding oneself out as a realtor is particularly disconcerting.
This is more telling of the desperation in the housing market. It may not be you, but there are many people being victimized because of their need for a home. And yes, because as a way to make money people can get inside of a property, legally by using a credit card and pay a nominal fee for “self tours” and a criminal can pretend to be an agent and fool a prospective tenant. Owners use this self tour system as a way to avoid paying a realtor a fee/commission.
Lets not be to quick to jump on the side of the criminal.