If you’re renting in Ithaca, please read this before you send anyone a dollar for a lease, a deposit, or a set of keys.

I recently spotted another suspicious rental post on Nextdoor — the kind that’s becoming all too common in our area. A property was listed “for rent” by someone claiming to represent the owner. The photos were real. The address was real. The person posting it was not who they claimed to be.

This Isn’t Hypothetical — It Happened to Someone I’ve Never Even Met

Earlier this year, a woman reached out to me directly. She had been searching for a rental and connected with someone claiming to be a “RE/MAX agent” — using our brokerage’s name to appear legitimate. She paid a damage deposit. She paid rent. She paid a pet fee. She paid to “hold” the unit.

Then she asked to see the inside of the home and sign paperwork — and the person vanished. No returned calls. No returned texts. Two no-shows for scheduled walkthroughs, including one where she waited over an hour on the property herself.

I had to tell her the truth: there was no agent by that name at RE/MAX In Motion, and no one by that name licensed anywhere in the Ithaca Association of REALTORS®. She had paid a stranger for a home she was never going to get the keys to.

I couldn’t get her money back. I couldn’t give her a lease. All I could do was point her toward filing a police report, contacting her bank to dispute the charges, and reporting it to the fraud authorities in her area. That’s a hard call to be on. It’s an even harder one to receive.

How the Scam Works

It’s simple, and that’s exactly why it works:

1. A scammer finds a real property — often one that’s actually listed for sale, already rented, or simply owned by someone with an online footprint (property records, real estate sites, even old listing photos are public).
2. They repost it as a rental, sometimes borrowing the name of a real brokerage or agent to look credible.
3. They create urgency — “high demand,” “several other applicants,” “hold your spot today” — to rush a decision.
4. They collect a deposit, first month’s rent, an application fee, or a pet fee, usually by wire transfer, e-transfer, gift card, or another payment method that’s hard to trace or reverse.
5. They stall, then disappear, once the money is in hand and the ask to actually see the property or sign a real lease comes up.

Ithaca’s rental market makes us a particularly attractive target. Between the colleges, the turnover, and the number of people searching for housing sight-unseen from out of town, it’s easy to see why a scraped listing with a good photo and a believable price can fool someone who’s simply trying to find a place to live before the semester or their lease starts.

Red Flags to Watch For

• You’re asked to pay before you’ve toured the inside of the home.
• The “agent” or “owner” avoids phone calls and only communicates by text or email.
• You’re pressured to act fast because “others are interested.”
• Payment is requested by wire transfer, e-transfer, cash app, or gift cards — methods that are difficult or impossible to reverse.
• The listing price is noticeably below market for the area.
• The name on the lease, in correspondence, or as the “agent” doesn’t match public property records or a licensed roster.

How to Protect Yourself

• Never pay a deposit, rent, or a fee before you have physically walked through the property with the person collecting the money.
• Verify the agent. In New York, you can look up a real estate licensee through the state’s licensing search. You can also check with the local board — I’m always happy to confirm whether a name is a real, active REALTOR® in our area.
• Look up the property owner through the county’s property records. If the name doesn’t match who you’re paying, stop.
• Ask to see the lease in advance and read it carefully before any money changes hands.
• Trust the old saying: if it’s too good to be true, it usually is.

If You Think You’ve Been Scammed

• File a police report right away — you’ll need it for any chance of recovering funds.
• Contact your bank or payment provider immediately and report it as fraud.
• Report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and if you’re outside the U.S., to your local fraud authority (in Canada, that’s the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 or antifraudcentre.ca).
• Report the listing to the platform it appeared on (Nextdoor, Facebook, Zillow, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Craigslist, etc.) so it can be taken down before it catches someone else.

These scams are getting more sophisticated every year, and they’re not going away. If something about a rental listing feels off — the urgency, the payment request, the unreachable “agent” — trust that instinct and ask questions before you ask for your bank’s help. And if you’re ever unsure whether an agent or listing is legitimate, reach out. I’d much rather spend five minutes confirming a name than watch someone lose their rent money to a stranger who was never going to hand over the keys.