Houston renters are losing hundreds, even thousands of dollars to rental scams that look legitimate but are designed to steal money and personal information.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 News reporter Amy Davis explains how these scams work and what renters should watch out for.<\/p>\n
Fake rental ads trick renters with credit check schemes<\/p>\n
Nearly 60% of Houstonians rent their homes, making rental scams a serious threat to many.<\/p>\n
The Federal Trade Commission recently warned<\/a> that people have lost $65 million to rental scams, with younger renters ages 18 to 29 falling victim more than any other age group.<\/p>\n How rental scams work<\/p>\n Scammers often use photos from legitimate rental listings but change the contact information. They pressure potential renters to pay money upfront before seeing the property in person.<\/p>\n Most fake rental ads appear on social media, with about half coming from Facebook ads in the past year.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s more from the FTC about the trick\u2019s thieves use<\/a><\/p>\n Pressure you for money upfront before you\u2019ve even seen the place in person.\u00a0<\/b>They might say you need to pay an application fee, security deposit, or first month\u2019s rent to \u201chold\u201d the property.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Say you need to show you\u2019re creditworthy by sending screenshots of your credit scores.<\/b>\u00a0They send links to websites that let you sign up for a credit check, often for $1. You might not realize that enrolls you in a paid membership with recurring fees, or that the scammer makes money as an \u201caffiliate\u201d for each enrollment.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Collect personal information to steal your identity.<\/b>\u00a0They tell you to complete an application with information like your Social Security number, a picture of your driver\u2019s license, paystubs, and other personal details that they can use to steal your identity.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n What renters can do to avoid scams<\/p>\n Experts advise renters to search the property address online to check if the same place is listed elsewhere with different prices or contact details.<\/p>\n Sometimes the property might already be listed for sale, which is a red flag.<\/p>\n Comparing prices with nearby rentals is also important. If the listing price is significantly lower than similar properties, it could be a scam.<\/p>\n Report suspicious listings<\/p>\n The FTC says renters ages 18 to 29 are three times more likely than other adults to lose money to rental scams.<\/p>\n To spot and avoid scams \u2013 and learn how to recover money if you paid a scammer \u2013 visit ftc.gov\/scams<\/a>. Report scams to the FTC atReportFraud.ftc.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston renters are losing hundreds, even thousands of dollars to rental scams that look legitimate but are designed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":493857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[2436,222363,4345,16844,24738,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-493856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-consumer","9":"tag-ftc-rental-scams","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-investigates","12":"tag-renters","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115842003875630329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n