The length some scammers will go to

A woman in Anchorage, Alaska is trying to sell her house through a Realtor. A craigslist scammer copied the ad and placed an ad on craigslist listing the house for rent. This is of course is the usual rental scam trying to swindle money out of potential renters.

The woman was contacted by her Realtor about the phony ad and decided to engage in some reverse scamming with the scammer.

The scammer called himself Lance Renfro among other aliases. Lance claimed to live in the San Diego area but had phone numbers in Florida and New Jersey. He claimed that him and his wife ‘Shannon’ were missionaries in San Diego and when asked for a picture he provided a picture from him and his wife that was an obvious fake dated back to 2003. Of course he asked the money to be wired to him so she could get the keys. Little did he realize he was talking to the actual owner of the house.

This is the kind of lengths that scammers will go to try and take your money.

Unfortunately there’s not a lot that law enforcement can do to prosecute these scammers because for the most part they are operating from outside the country.

Your best weapon against these scammers is knowledge and dealing with people you can actually identify.