An article in today's Salt Lake Tribune says that there have been 10 cases in the last month or so of people showing up at Park City properties expecting to rent them. But the properties are owned/occupied and not for rent. The rental ads were on Craig's list and often "too good to be true". The fraudsters would have renters send deposits to bank accounts--outside of Utah. The police are recommending that renters use viable/reputable property management companies.
Craigs List Rental Frauds in Park City
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It's sad that people will still fall for this after all the warnings about fraud for the last however many years.
Craig's list is fine if you want to buy a hand guitar and you get to see/try it before you pay.
Using them for anything remotely resembling real estate - or anything you can;t test out at the time - is simply complete foolishness. But you can't protect people from their own greed (if the deal is too good to be true it IS a fake).
One way I have dealt with this is say that I have a friend (cousin, son) who lives near by and will come by to inspect the property prior to sending a check. Please sent a date and time. And another is to send a confirmation letter to the address of the property. And generally real estate ownership records are available on the internet for that country. Check to see who the registered own is. I even do that for rentals through VRBO. Does not hurt to double check.
I agree--I wouldn't use Craigs list for rentals either!