Just 2 days after I listed my new rental in Bowie, MD, my listing was hijacked. I will now add scam-reporter to my responsibilities as the listing agent. Perhaps it was just the luck of the draw but this just happened really fast .... 
I do periodically google the address of my listings to see where else it may pop up, unauthorized. I didn't even get to that point this time around. Thank goodness for cooperation among Realtors®. One of our prospects stumbled upon my rental on another website and was stunned to find it listed by "the owner" and at a substantial discount.
If it's too good to be true ... then it's likely a scam. She inquired with "the owner" who responded in the typical scammer manner, terrible English, out-of-the-country, peek through the window if you want to see the house and send me the money and I'll send you the key.
Tenants BEWARE - responses like these are always, always a scam. Do not ever send money to "the owner" who claims to be out-of-the-country. It pays to hire a Realtor®! Your Realtor® can check with the listing agent and confirm that the scam is indeed scam.
Luckily our prospect was suspicious of the response and contacted her agent who in turn alerted me. I immediately located my hijacked listing on 2 different websites - and it was not Craigslist but ForRentByOwner.com and Realrentals.com!
There were my pictures and my write-up, every single word, taken straight from Zillow (I suspect) ... the only differences were that the scam listing allowed pets and we don't, that it was listed by "the owner" and that rent was more than $600 less ... the latter is another sure indicator that there are scammers criminals at work.
ForRentByOwner.com and Realrentals.com have both taken down the listing as soon as I reported it as scam - it literally took less than 10 minutes. I wish there was a way to prevent it in the first place but I give them credit for immediately taking action.
Will this stop the scammers criminals from doing it again? Not likely. As a matter of fact I would not be surprised at all if I see it back up tomorrow. But perhaps it pi$$ed him off just a tad that his 'hard work' [insert sarcasm here] of hijacking my listing, copying and pasting my content and establishing accounts on other websites did not work out for him this time around... If only I could collect on all the copyright violations! Rest assured, I will remain vigilant and report my hijacked listings when I see them.
There's not much we can do about it - the alternative would be limited online advertising but would that be in our clients' best interest? I will point this out to any future landlords, however.
My listing got hijacked and I'll now add scam-reporter to my responsibilities as the listing agent. Scammer Criminal beware!
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