After The $18,000 Scam, How Can Bay Area Renters Protect Themselves?

In the last few weeks, a nightmare housing scam sent shockwaves across the Bay Area.

A scam so fiendish that even Reddit users — not always known for their compassion — were sympathetic to the target. 

Earlier this month, San Francisco resident Alvin Tran posted online about how he lost over $18,000 in a rental scam last month.

Tran’s story soon made headlines — and not just because of how much money he lost to someone claiming to be the owner of a highly coveted apartment in the city’s Duboce Triangle neighborhood.

It also has renters across the region thinking: As scammers adopt more advanced technology and strategies in an increasingly expensive rental market, what can you do to avoid being the next target?

‘So elaborate and sophisticated’

As Tran told KQED, he first saw the Duboce apartment listed on Craigslist and began messaging the person behind the listing, who claimed to be the building’s owner.

That person invited Tran to check out the rental — at a real open house, hosted by the real owner. But Tran didn’t know that the owner never listed the apartment on Craigslist. The open house was so busy that he said he barely got a chance to talk to the landlord.

After the open house, he wired $18,600 to the Craigslist “landlord,” which included first and last months’ rent, along with a security deposit. On the day Tran was meant to pick up the keys at the apartment, nobody showed — and his panicked messages to the person he believed to be his new landlord went unanswered.

“It was all so elaborate and sophisticated that I just couldn’t believe that it was a scam,” Tran told KQED. And the complexity of the scam — with a bad actor inserting themselves online between a renter and an actual landlord — has even surprised local officials. 

“[Tran] really didn’t do anything wrong here. He took nearly every precaution that a reasonable person could take,” said Amanda Fried, chief assistant treasurer for San Francisco, who’s part of a citywide initiative launched this summer to prevent fraud and support victims.

Some industry experts say it’s getting harder to spot a scam as fraudsters depend more on AI. Historically, an email with poor grammar or a strange voice on the phone could raise red flags, said Clayton LiaBraaten, spokesperson for Truecaller, a company that identifies and blocks fraudulent calls. 

“Now, I can have a perfectly scripted voice, email or text message,” LiaBraaten said. “These scammers are very accomplished at AI.”

But renters, take a breath — the battle is not lost. There are still several strategies to catch a scam before losing any money, even if technology is making everything more complicated. 

Keep reading for what experts told KQED you should do before handing over any money to someone online that claims to lease the home you want.

Tip 1: How much are they asking for upfront?

When Tran visited the open house, he loved the apartment but saw that he wasn’t the only one. He spotted six other groups, and someone had even shown up with a completed application.

“I was feeling the pressure: How do I make myself stand out? How do I secure the apartment?” he said. 

So after the open house, Tran wrote to the individual who made the Craigslist post and said he was willing to put money down immediately to secure the lease. The individual asked for first and last month’s rent, along with an additional deposit — totaling $18,600.

The sheer amount here is immediately a red flag, said Ora Prochovnick, director of litigation for the San Francisco renters’ rights group, Eviction Defense Collaborative. 

Why: In 2023, state lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 12, which limits how much landlords can charge a renter upfront. Most property owners are now prohibited from charging tenants an amount that’s greater than two months of rent.

If one month’s rent at an apartment you are looking at is $3,000 a month, the landlord can only charge you an additional $3,000 deposit — and can only charge a maximum of $6,000 upfront.

Some landlords may have different names for a deposit payment, like “security deposit,” “last month’s rent deposit” or “cleaning deposit”.

“But it doesn’t matter what they call it,” Prochovnick said. “If the landlord is taking the money at the start of the tenancy and will be holding it for the duration of the time the tenant lives there, the most that they can [ask for as a deposit] is one time the rent.”

There are some exceptions: Property owners with four rental units or less across two different properties are allowed to charge more. But all renters should take a pause if they are asked for a deposit that exceeds AB 12’s limit, Prochovnick said.

“It doesn’t stop a scam, but it would at least reduce the amount that you lose,” she said, adding that it’s likely Tran’s scammer didn’t know about this law. There are many rules California landlords have to follow, and someone claiming to be one is expected to keep track of them.

Tip 2: Cross-reference the property across different platforms

If you find a home you like on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, it’s a good idea to also look up the address on real estate websites like Zillow, Trulia or Apartments.com.

“As a diligent consumer, I should be ensuring that the contact details are the same [across websites],” Prochovnick said. “What’s the full name of the person to be identified? Is the rent price the same? The agent names should match perfectly.”

In Tran’s case, the person on Craigslist was also using the real landlord’s name. When the Craigslist scammer ghosted him once the money was wired, Tran panicked and checked the apartment’s Zillow listing.

He ended up finding the real owner, who never received any payment. “That’s when I got the confirmation that the Craigslist did not belong to the owner,” he said.

Tran said that in the years leading up to this incident, he’d found two old apartments on Craigslist without any problem.

But LiaBraaten from Truecaller said he’d advise would-be renters to use this site with caution. Instead, “Deal with platforms that are specifically dedicated to the rental market,” he said.

Craigslist did not immediately return KQED’s request for comment.

Tip 3: Confirm property ownership yourself

Once you’ve cross-referenced online listings, go to the official source. Your city’s planning department or assessor-recorder’s office may have an online portal where you can look up an address and find whose name is linked to the property. In some cases, you may have to go to city hall to do this in person.

“We should especially be doing that if we’re dealing with an independent landlord rather than with a property management company,” Prochovnick said.

She also recommended you always visit the property yourself. If the landlord keeps giving you reasons for why you can’t visit, that’s another red flag. “Never fall for that. You have to physically visit the property,” she said.

Of course, Tran did visit the property — which is why it’s also crucial to use any visit to “physically confirm the identity of the person who’s showing you the place,” Prochovnick said. “Ask them for their real estate license number, their corporate credentials or some kind of ID.”

Tran admitted that he didn’t do this at the open house. There were so many people there that day that he barely got a chance to speak with the owner, he said. 

“But I think had I just done that and gone the extra mile to verify his contact information, this whole scam would have fallen apart,” he said.

Tip 4: Be cautious of direct bank transfers

All experts KQED spoke with were very clear about avoiding direct transfers from your bank account — also known as wire transfers.

“Don’t wire money, don’t use crypto, don’t use those digital apps that we’ve all come to love like Venmo and Zelle,” Prochovnick said, “because you’re not protected when you use those tools.”

In her experience, most real estate management companies take payments via credit card or check.

“If you pay with a credit card, you could get the payment canceled, and you have fraud protection through your credit card company,” she said. “If you do it with a check or money order, you could stop payment on the check.”

And if you still are going to wire money, LiaBraaten from Truecaller recommended you verify the destination and ask if the recipient’s information makes sense to you. 

“Verify: Is this going to an individual or to a business entity?” he said.

Tip 5: Keep a record of what’s going on

Even if it all feels legit, keep a record of every interaction you have with the person claiming to be the property owner.

Screenshot online listings, emails, payments and text messages — especially if you’re communicating on a platform like WhatsApp, where one user can delete messages for everyone else in the chat.

“When you are about to sign a contract or put down a deposit, you should document every step of the way … so that you’re able to reconstruct [what happened],” LiaBraaten said.

Having a complete timeline of what happened will be invaluable if it ends up being a scam and you decide to report what happened to law enforcement.

This is something Tran did very well — when he alerted the San Francisco Police Department, he was able to share every piece of communication he had with the scammer.

However, in the weeks since Tran filed a report, he said that law enforcement has yet to contact him directly in response.

Tip 6: Don’t let the pressure of apartment hunting get to you

Perhaps what makes Tran’s case a true Bay Area story is the huge pressure he felt as he looked for a new home amid a competitive rental market.

His attempt to secure the Duboce apartment was spurred by a rent hike of almost 20% at his current spot — way past what he said he can afford.

Partly fueled by the AI boom, rents in San Francisco have risen this year faster than anywhere else in the country, and the rest of the Bay Area is starting to feel the heat.

But Prochovnick said not to let the pressure prevent you from doing your due diligence when it comes to finding a new home.

“You’re tempted to go ahead and wire money — even though it’s not safe — so that you could go to the head of the line,” she said. “This anxiety about the shortage of affordable units is absolutely inducing people to be more susceptible to scams.”

And when rents are so high here, she said, “it’s creating a greater incentive to be a scammer.”