Victims of ‘home takeover’ scam locked out of house
- Xerxes Wilson and Christina Jedra for Delaware Online November 24th, 2017
- Source: http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2017/11/24/wilmington-family-booted-home-victim-craigslist-scam/886800001/
Article cites research by Damon McCoy, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at NYU Tandon.
A Delaware man says he’s the victim of a so-called “home takeover” scam. … Alexander Pratt lived in a Wilmington house for 10 months with his fiancee and son before being locked out. … Pratt said the man he thought was the landlord and to whom he paid rent disappeared. The real property owners said they had no idea anyone was living in the house. Pratt said he rented the house from a man who posted an ad on Craigslist. ... Such scams are not new. And researchers at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering found that Craigslist often fails to identify scam rental listings.
