Here's an interesting post by a security expert who was initially fooled by a rental phishing scam:

https://jeffreyladish.com/anat...

It shows that the scammers are getting better and more sophisticated, where the applicant was sent a link that looked legitimate but actually sent him to a phishing site. 

And, now with virtual showings, its going to be that much easier for these scammers to trick and swindle applicants. 

So, is there any way we can prevent our ads and pictures from getting hijacked by these scammers? And, how can applicants verify that the ad is real?

We can watermark our photos, but I've seen plenty of fake ads that still lifted photos with watermark.