Hijacked to Craigslist, I get it, but TO Trulia? Really?

Andrea, 

I'm active on Trulia Q&A and this is a huge problem there.  Any post from anywhere gets cloned, repriced and posted by some Nigerian doing charity work who just wants a "good person" to watch over the house.  Send them $X.00 and they PROMISE they will send keys back by mail.  I had this happen to a listing of mine through Craigslist and got it flagged quickly.  It's not your fault and all you can do is take them down when you are aware.  

Andrea - Boy this must be frustrating. Not sure how someone could hack into Trulia - I thought they got syndicated listings mainly through the MLS's (as others have already said). Sorry you are having to deal with this. Hopefully you can get this issue resolved quickly.

Ugh. I wish we had the ability to take all these Internet scammers out and set them on their own little island - with NO Internet access. 

It seems to me that I read about individual people being allowed to post on either Trulia or Zillow - so perhaps that's how it happened. 

A few months back, I saw a listing on Zillow for a new construction build. When I looked up that address in our MLS, it was actually listed with another agent and brokerage. One local agent had kidnapped another local agent's MLS to promote new construction. The problem...

1. It suggested that the listing at that address was his. It wasn't.
2. The photo he used stated that was a photo of a representative home his company had built. However, I discovered it was a clipart photo. 

I notified the REAL listing agent to the problem. I also filed a complaint with Zillow and it was immediately taken down.

I hope this isnt the beginning of another bad trend. I will not use Craigslist because of all the scammers... hope this doenst become the norm on Trulia too... thanks for a great post!

Good morning Andrea. That is very frustrating and unfortunately I see stuff like this happen too often. When information gets out there, in space who knows what will happen to it.

Make it a great weekend!

Dean, Dean, that is horrible.  Can't wait to hear the outcome of this.....should be quite interesting.

These problems have always been associated primarily with rental properties and rental listings. 

This hijacking is a problem for you - and a problem for would-be tenants who can get taken for an expensive ride.

Since these scammers ARE out there, it's important to keep spreading the word to the public:

• Don't ever send your money to someone who promises to send you the keys.
• Work with an established agent, or at least with an established resident of the community. 

Andrea, yikes!  This is the first I've heard of this nonsense on Trulia.  Wonder if Zillow will be following soon?

Andrea - People should use a little common sense, but since they don't, it's up to all of us to keep reminding them. 

Of course, some of those people take things upon themselves anyway. Back when I was an agent I occasionally ran into a buyer who would knock on a door and tell the homeowner that I told them to come alone. It didn't happen often, thank goodness! 

Giving out the code to a lock box isn't just lazy - it's stupid. Think of the liability! I suppose they think "No one will know."