Has anyone had their listing photos stolen for a scam?

Question

Has this happened to anyone? Had a listing's photos get stolen and reposted somewhere else at a lower price, or dealt with someone impersonating your listing to collect a deposit from a renter? Trying to understand how often this actually happens and how people find out / what they do about it.

Laurence J. · Answer

HI @Michael Nkem - unfortunately this is extremely common across all the listing platforms. When I co-led the Rentals Org at Realtor.com this was a perpetual battle. In my experience, the lever you have is to go to the fraudulent listing and "mark it as fraudulent" so that the website takes it down. That action might look different on various websites, but is usually fairly obvious where to click.

Then, you can do a few things that make it harder for it to happen again, including specifically saying in the description that "tours must be done in person" (because the fraudulent lister doesn't usually alter the text) and putting watermarks on any photo that you list.

Just know that it's not you specifically they're targeting, this is just extremely common.

Good luck!

Best,

Laurence

Tim Kirk · Answer

@Michael Nkem they took all my photos and created their own listing. Acted as if they were the landlord and collected a deposit just to schedule an a appointment to see it. The person who fell for it sent me a screenshot of the thread. To me, it screamed fake and they should've known better, but regardless it obviously happens. I don't recall how they (prospective tenant) ended up getting ahold of me, but they did to schedule a showing and I had to inform them of the apparent scam

Michael Nkem · Answer

Appreciate you laying that out. The 'charge a deposit just to book a showing' angle is a smart (evil) twist, way lower friction than asking for a full deposit upfront, so people don't think twice. Good on the tenant for reaching back out to you before it went further, that doesn't always happen. This is actually exactly the pattern I'm trying to catch. I'm building a free tool (Verifi) that flags when listing photos are being reused/reposted elsewhere, so an agent (or a renter) can catch it before money hands, want to know how frequent it happens.

Michael Nkem · Answer

That's a smart move by the scammer honestly, pulling from an MLS sale listing means the photos already look professional and legitimate. Did your realtor say how they found out it was happening, or did the actual victim end up contacting them directly like in the other story on here?

Michael Nkem · Answer

Really appreciate this, Laurence. The watermark + "tours must be in person" combo is a great low-effort deterrent I hadn't thought about. Out of curiosity, at the scale you saw this at Realtor.com, was it mostly opportunistic scammers reposting individual listings, or did you see more organized/repeat operations behind a lot of it?

Caleb Brown · Answer

Yes. I see it on FBMP a lot. You can report and blast the scam on social media. Sad but not a ton you can do

Michael Nkem · Answer

Sad to know it's hitting Opendoor listings too, figured it'd mostly be individual owner posts. And that's a smart habit, sticking to MLS/Zillow and being upfront that money goes straight to the owner. That single line probably kills a chunk of the confusion right there, even for people who aren't scam-savvy.

Quick one: when you catch an impersonated listing, do you usually find it yourself, or does it come from a prospective tenant reaching out like last time?

Michael K Gallagher · Answer

Happens pretty often in our market unfortunately.  including on a bunch of open door listings.  I'll get my rental listing impersonated also, that's why we generally only post on the MLS or zillow not on craigslist of marketplace, and advise anyone looking to confirm.

I also make it very clear when I meet people they won't be giving me a deposit or monty they will be giving it to the owner directly (this may not be your case but as the leasing agent most of the time for individual owners it is the case for us).

Has anyone had their listing photos stolen for a scam?

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