Houston renters are losing hundreds, even thousands of dollars to rental scams that look legitimate but are designed to steal money and personal information.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 News reporter Amy Davis explains how these scams work and what renters should watch out for.<\/p>\n
Fake rental ads trick renters with credit check schemes<\/p>\n
Nearly 60% of Houstonians rent their homes, making rental scams a serious threat to many.<\/p>\n
The Federal Trade Commission recently warned<\/a> that people have lost $65 million to rental scams, with younger renters ages 18 to 29 falling victim more than any other age group.<\/p>\n How rental scams work<\/p>\n Scammers often use photos from legitimate rental listings but change the contact information. They pressure potential renters to pay money upfront before seeing the property in person.<\/p>\n Most fake rental ads appear on social media, with about half coming from Facebook ads in the past year.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s more from the FTC about the trick\u2019s thieves use<\/a><\/p>\n Pressure you for money upfront before you\u2019ve even seen the place in person.\u00a0They might say you need to pay an application fee, security deposit, or first month\u2019s rent to \u201chold\u201d the property.<\/p>\n Say you need to show you\u2019re creditworthy by sending screenshots of your credit scores.\u00a0They send links to websites that let you sign up for a credit check, often for $1. You might not realize that enrolls you in a paid membership with recurring fees, or that the scammer makes money as an \u201caffiliate\u201d for each enrollment.<\/p>\n Collect personal information to steal your identity.\u00a0They tell you to complete an application with information like your Social Security number, a picture of your driver\u2019s license, paystubs, and other personal details that they can use to steal your identity.<\/p>\n What renters can do to avoid scams<\/p>\n Experts advise renters to search the property address online to check if the same place is listed elsewhere with different prices or contact details.<\/p>\n Sometimes the property might already be listed for sale, which is a red flag.<\/p>\n Comparing prices with nearby rentals is also important. If the listing price is significantly lower than similar properties, it could be a scam.<\/p>\n Report suspicious listings<\/p>\n The FTC says renters ages 18 to 29 are three times more likely than other adults to lose money to rental scams.<\/p>\n To spot and avoid scams \u2013 and learn how to recover money if you paid a scammer \u2013 visit ftc.gov\/scams<\/a>. Report scams to the FTC atReportFraud.ftc.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston renters are losing hundreds, even thousands of dollars to rental scams that look legitimate but are designed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2409,49382,56,58,57,5778,49381],"class_list":{"0":"post-111152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-consumer","9":"tag-ftc-rental-scams","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news","13":"tag-investigates","14":"tag-renters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}