ALLENTOWN, Pa. (WFMZ) — Real estate scams are on the rise in the Lehigh Valley. Potential renters and even listing agents have fallen victim.<\/p>\n
“There’s been so many people scammed. It’s even happened within my office,” said Donna Sacco.<\/p>\n
Sacco is a realtor with Coldwell Banker Hearthside.<\/p>\n
Sacco, who serves as the President-Elect of the Greater Lehigh Valley Association of Realtors, told us while a listing may look legitimate on the surface, there are red flags that point to a scam and there are multiple kinds out there.<\/p>\n
“People calling, pretending to own land, putting it on the market with the listing agent saying they are out of town, they can’t meet. There’s of course urgency to sell. In most cases, the agents are getting photo ID that looks legitimate. They are checking the tax record. Everything seems legit. The names are matching but they’re never meeting,” Sacco explained.<\/p>\n
If it’s not someone pretending to sell land, then it’s taking a real or former rental listing and using it to get a consumer’s private information or scam them out of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n
“People are stealing rental listings, putting them online and soliciting. Usually, they’re for a very low rent and they’re saying ‘hey fill out the application.’ There’s a pressure to act right now, they want quickness because they don’t want people to have enough time to think about it, they’re also requesting secrecy,” Sacco stated.<\/p>\n
If you’re being asked to put down a deposit via Venmo or crypto currency, run.<\/p>\n
“A lot of times you’ll find poor grammar and really inconsistent communication. They are going to refuse to meet in person,” Sacco said.<\/p>\n
Last year, Sacco told us, a woman came into her office crying after she put down a deposit and first month’s rent on a property that a scammer copied off of one of Sacco’s listings, going as far as using the same photos and descriptions.<\/p>\n
“Work with a trusted professional. Call a realtor if you’re looking for a rental. Don’t send money before you see the place. We can fact check; we have all the information. We can look up the tax records, see if the owner matches who they’re speaking to. Maybe get involved a little bit or intervene,” Sacco concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. (WFMZ) — Real estate scams are on the rise in the Lehigh Valley. Potential renters and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232],"class_list":["post-185892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}