In San Francisco, it is the summer season of rental scams
A sunny apartment at a price too good to be true. A text message offering a loan to pay off pandemic rental debts. Or a sudden phone call promising a grant to avoid an eviction – for a small up-front fee.
Welcome to the world of home fraud in the age of COVID-19.
In expensive rental markets like the Bay Area, home fraud with low detail and strong pressure to hand over deposits is nothing new. However, recent warnings from financial watchdogs and data on rental housing systems point to a rapidly changing landscape for California renters trying to navigate the frenzied pandemic housing market, where some tenants struggle to pay off their debts while others experience discounted rents benefit.
A new Apartment Guide report reveals that California was home to three of the five largest cities in the country for reported rental fraud per capita from January 2015 to May 2021: No. 1 Los Angeles, No. 3 San Francisco, and No. 4 San Diego . The report also found that the busy summer moving season tends to be the most expensive when average losses have exceeded $ 19,000 per victim.
The timing couldn’t be worse this year. After a slow start to California’s unprecedented $ 5.2 billion pandemic rental relief program, officials are asking renters to seek assistance before the state’s September 30 eviction moratorium expires. However, tenant attorneys warn that an increasing number of scams could hamper these efforts.
“It’s really brutal to prove that you’re not just trying to get people’s information and take advantage of them,” said Leora Tanjuatco Ross, associate director of San Mateo County’s Housing Leadership Council.
Even before the pandemic, Tanjuatco Ross said her non-profit organization was hearing more skepticism from tenants who were exhausted by years of rising costs and intense competition for housing. And now dozens of community groups have been enlisted across the state to ease rents through a maze of city, county, and state programs funded by the federal government.
According to the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, the state’s primary rent reduction program had paid out $ 282 million in financing to 23,760 households by last week – a fraction of the 807,000 households the National Equity Atlas estimates were lagging behind in rent. With the addition of smaller rent relief programs in the Bay Area and the city, only 10% of the nearly $ 900 million in funds available to the area had been disbursed by mid-July.
Now efforts to speed up those payments clash with recent warnings from watchdog groups that scammers are changing their tactics as rents pandemic protection expires.
“Scammers often take advantage of the confusion and stress surrounding major events,” the Better Business Bureau said in an August 6 warning. “When the eviction moratorium expires, watch out for fraudsters offering loans, selling credit repair services, or promoting government programs.”
The Better Business Bureau scam tracker, which is just a snapshot based on consumer reports, has identified more than 50 rental and moving frauds in the Bay Area and 144 across California since the COVID-19 lockdown began in March 2020. They range from two roommates in Oakland who said they lost $ 4,190 after viewing an apartment by sending a person in Los Angeles money for a deposit via a cash app that was $ 499 for paid an eviction defense service that never came about.
One challenge is that the supply of rental fraud in California has exploded in recent years, well beyond known attempts to trick home applicants into transferring money to unknown recipients. Now scammers can reassure them that they don’t need social security numbers, just a credit report. Or they post photos of homes recently sold or offered for rent on more regulated sites like Zillow, Vrbo, or Airbnb, district attorneys warned in Santa Cruz County and elsewhere.
Last year, the FBI’s cybercrime department reported more than 13,600 confirmed victims of rental and real estate fraud in the United States. This makes them less common than credit card schemes, but more common than healthcare tricks. Overall, real estate fraud cost victims more than $ 213 million.
In the Bay Area, rental fraud has also taken hold in fire-hit areas and, more recently, in locations that have seen an influx of remote workers. Take a three-bedroom, white picket fence Santa Cruz bungalow that was advertised last week on Craigslist for $ 3,600 a month and on Zillow for $ 4,600 a month.
Go to www.housing.ca.gov, text 211211, or call (833) 430-2122 to see if you are eligible for legitimate state, county, or local rent loss programs.
Never agree to pay a fee for assistance with free rental reduction programs, or give your Social Security number, bank account, or credit card number to someone who contacts you.
When you hear about an organization offering rental help, search for their name online with the words “scam”, “scam” or “complaint” to see what others have to say.
The California eviction ban for non-payment of rent lasts through September 30th. Tenant attorneys recommend that you follow the “three-S rule” when you receive an eviction notice: stay at home, submit a COVID-19 hardship declaration to your landlord and look for tenant relief.
Report suspected fraud related to rent reduction at www.reportfraud.ftc.gov or to the local public prosecutor.
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“I can’t give you a personal tour right now,” said the Craigslist poster, instead offering an in-depth backstory about cancer treatment out of state and a picture of a driver’s license with the same address in Santa Cruz.
“Yeah, it’s a scam,” said Scott Joly, the real estate agent trying to rent the actual house.
Lauren Hepler is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: lauren.hepler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LAHepler
