Canadian craigslist real estate scam

October 12, 2007 in Real Estate by Trench Reynolds | No comments

It was too good to be true, so what’s Craigslist doing about it?:
The answer to that of course would be nothing but I’m getting a head of myself. This story is out of Vancouver, British Columbia about a renter who constantly had to tell prospective renters that he wasn’t really renting the property advertised on craigslist. It seems that the old craigslist “I don’t really own this place” real estate scam is flourishing in Vancouver.

However the headline asks a really good question. What is craigslist doing about it?

Craigslist didn’t respond to my inquiry asking what, if anything, they’ve done about this instance of fraud, whether they know of other cases like it, and what they advise customers to do to protect themselves. The website’s terms of use do prohibit anything illegal, and it operates with a system of user-generated flags that may result in a posting being pulled. But the company has said in other contexts that it does not and cannot police things people post.

By that measure, it’s Craigslist itself that has the most to lose if this kind of scam is allowed to flourish.

Craigslist probably won’t lose much as there will always be a plethora of gullible people willing to trust them.

Tags: Real Estate Scam, Vancouver