Latest Internet Scam: Homes for Rent

Nigerian Scams

He then asked for Dennis to wire money to Nigeria.

"I told him no. I said I needed some type of lease agreement," she said. "I went by to see it. It was the same photos as he had on the Web site. I checked out the neighborhood. I looked at the house. It was locked down, but the all the windows were open. Everything was cleared out."

The lease arrived and she sent him half the money -- $650 -- saying the other half would come after the keys arrived.

Related

Mortgages Fall, Saving Homebuyers $$$

PHOTOS: How to Live Like an Heiress

Your Money: The Backyard Economy

Once the money was sent, he told her that there was another renter interested who would pay six months upfront. If Dennis could pay two more months of rent immediately, she could have the house.

"At that point, I knew it was a scam," she said.

The house was actually being rented out by Sierra Nevada Management Group for a few hundred dollars more a month.

Sandy Clark is the owner of the property management firm. The scammers had stolen her ads and were even using her name in e-mails to their targets.

"People don't know that they're a scam until they send the first e-mail," Clark said.

The scammers lifted, word-for-word, the description of the house that Clark had posted on a legitimate real estate search site. It was one of several properties that they lifted.

"I ended up having to pull my ads from the site I was using," she said. "But I still have to do business and I still have to advertise."

And this scam isn't just happening in Reno.

It has popped up recently in Cincinnati; Boulder, Colo.; Savannah, Ga.; and other cities around the country.

Greg Donewar, manager of the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center, in Fairmont, W. Va., said that last year his center -- which works with the FBI -- was getting 4,000 complaints of Web scams a week. Now it's 5,000 a week.

"I wouldn't just say there's an increase in housing scams. We've noticed a significant increase in complaints overall this year," he said. "It has increased quite a bit."

Craig Butterworth, a media specialist for the National White Collar Crime Center, which also works with the FBI on cybercrime, said the poor economy has a lot to do with the rise.