Craigslist Alert: Couple Moves Into Rental Home, Then Learns It’s a Scam [VIDEO]

My jaw dropped when I learned about this scam that is becoming all too common on Craigslist.

A Lockland, Ohio couple moved into a rental home only to learn that they had to move out almost immediately. Delah and JiJi Ndiaye tell WXYZ they found the one-bedroom home on Craigslist and decided it was the perfect rental at just $475 per month.

"We found this place on Craigslist. We called the landlord, and he told us to meet him over here to look at it," Delah said.

The Ndiayes paid their security deposit and began to settle in. Then just days later they got a visit from the real landlord.

"They were coming here to lock us out, and we didn't know what was going on," she said.

The couple was the victim of what is becoming a commonplace scam. Crooks will see a legitimate ad on Craigslist, then copy it and repost it, often at a lower monthly rate. When would-be renters contact them, they collect the security deposit and can even present what looks to be a legitimate lease.

The Ndiayes say they were given the door code to the property and figure the fake landlord had probably posed as a potential renter in order to learn the code from the real landlord.

In this article published by Consumer Reports, experts say that if a rental property is being offered at a price that seems too good to be true, it probably is.