BEWARE OF BOGUS RENTAL SCAMS IF YOU'RE MOVING TO THE MAT-SU VALLEY IN ALASKA

Beware of bogus rental scams if you're moving to the Mat-Su Valley in Alaska. There's no way to know how often this occurs, but we're hearing about it WAY more often than you would think.  We at http://www.alaskahomesellers.com/ are aware of the problem and the only way that we can think to try to serve all of you is to try to bring it to your attention.  

If you are moving to the Matsu Valley of Alaska and plan to rent for a while before you buy a home or other Alaska real estate, always verify who you are dealing with before sharing any of your personal information.  When the time comes to buy a home, you can shop on our website to see what is available for sale here.     

What the 'scammers' are doing is extracting information from the internet of listings that are 'active' on the market.  They can steal photos, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, the comments on the listing describing the highlights of the home, etc. etc. and generate bogus scam ads portraying themselves as the owner of the property and their wish to rent it. 

Unfortunately, the bogus rental scam ads often will contain information describing the owner suddenly moving from the area for an extended period for a supposed "mission" trip.  Clearly these ploys continue to work as this has been occurring for years in one form or another.  

I recently talked with a client that asked if I was aware of any bogus rental scams, and when I described how often they contain the "mission" term, their eyes grew wide and they realized how close they had came to losing deposit monies, personal identities, and more.  

Take a look at the following ad from "Craigslist" and determine for yourself if it is legit or a bogus ad.     

This is actually a home for sale in Wasilla, AK and contains all the data that is easily obtained by searching the internet for homes for sale in Wasilla, AK.  

They even had a copy of the correspondence that was emailed to them from the 'owner' describing in detail, their dissatisfaction with their 'realtor' and how the 'realtor' tried to "rip them off".  Here is a copy of the emailed response from the bogus 'owner'!  The story is quite plausible as well, and if you weren't aware of the scammers, it's easy to understand how this could happen.

I suspect that there is a lot of that going on here due to our sheer distance from the lower 48, and because the potential tenant isn't here, find it far too easy to fall prey to their fraudulent trap! There is an old saying that goes something like, "if something seems to be good to be true, it probably is".  Such is often the case when it comes to these scammers.  The ads are never on for very long, and "Craigslist" isn't the only offender.  Many of the national real estate websites contain these bogus ads as well.

We also have 3 professional property managers in our office that can share with you their available inventory.  To get their contact information you can contact us via our website, or call us at (907)352-1828.  

Please be careful out there!

Greg Shepard

Associate Broker, REALTOR, GRI, SFR, RFC

Jack White Real Estate 

Wasilla, AK 99654