Tenant Scams — ApproveShield

Tenant Scams

A number of tenant scams happen regularly, victimizing landlords who do not have effective procedures in place for screening renters, collecting rents, and writing the right contract. These scams can pose a great risk to the business.

1. False Prior Rental Verifications The most common tenant scam we find is false prior rental verifications.

Someone will answer the phone as the landlord of a property they either did not live in or was not really the actual landlord of the property they live in. We at Approveshield will verify rental history using proven methods that minimize chance of fraud.

2. Tenants Doing Things to Reset the Eviction Process One of the most common tenant scams is when a tenant pays partial rent, perhaps $50 or $100, when they owe significantly more and are in the eviction process. By accepting their payment you are resetting the clock on the eviction and you’re being forced to start the entire eviction from scratch. Another scam is when former tenants who have been evicted will, on the day of the eviction, ask for a few more hours or an extra day to move their things. By allowing them to stay the extra few hours, I’ve had people basically squat in the dwelling, resetting the eviction process again. Once the officer leaves, it’s difficult to force them out without starting from scratch again.

3. Providing a Fake Credit Report

One common scam among professional tenants is to convince the landlord to accept a credit report provided by the tenant (not run independently by the landlord), and to hand over the keys when a lease is signed and a paper check delivered. As soon as the lease agreement is signed and the keys handed over, the tenant now has legal possession of the property. The only way to get them out is to go through the legal eviction process, which takes months. In many jurisdictions, tenants can prolong the eviction process for six to 12 months.

Approveshield sources the credit report directly from the credit reporting agency, allowing for an early detection of fraud in the application process.

4. Using Fraudulent Documents during the Application Process One of the most common types of tenant scams is the creation of fraudulent documents that form part of the rental application. Landlords need to know that it is important to verify the details that tenants provide in their employment letter and reference letters. There are professional scammers who employ this method in order to get into a property, and shortly thereafter their checks begin to bounce. Being duped into this scam can cost landlords a few months’ rent while they apply to a tribunal to have the tenancy terminated and the tenant evicted. Approveshield combines the power of Machine Learning with the experienced Research Analysts to create a defense mechanism against the ever increasing number of applications that are backed with fraudulent documents.