Alleged Rent Scammer Charged With Theft By Deception After Pocketing $1,000 From Unwitting Tenant For Foreclosed Home

In Atlanta, Georgia, WXIA-TV Channel 11 reports:

• It's time to turn the table on landlords. They do background checks on you. We'd recommend you do background checks on them. Why? You could find yourself kicked to the curb after signing a lease. Shanitra Jones learned that the hard way. "When the foreclosure people came, I just started putting my stuff back in boxes because I knew that one day soon, I'd have to move," she told 11Alive's Center for Investigative Action.

• Just days after signing her lease and paying $1000.00 to rent an Atlanta house, she got a knock on the door from Bank of America representatives, telling her the house had been foreclosed upon. The man who rented her the house, Eliot Harrison had signed the lease with her 3 days after Bank of America said it had full legal title to the property to sell the house at auction. So we knocked on his door to get Harrison's side of the story. "I don't want to talk about it," Harrison said, as he closed the door on us.

• However, he will have difficulty keeping silent about it, because DeKalb County Police arrested him and charged him with theft by deception.(1) [...] Click here to see the arrest warrant - State of Georgia v. Harrison.

For the story, see Dangers of Renting a Foreclosed House.

(1) Reportedly, Bank of America has offered the victimized tenant relief under the 'cash for keys' program. She has been offered $2000.00 and 2 months to find a new place to live. Harrison's case is now in the hands of the DeKalb County District Attorney and, despite repeated requests, he still hasn't offered us his side of the story, according to the story. Harrison had surrendered his Georgia real estate license following an investigation in 2007 on an unrelated matter. Click here to see the order from the Georgia Real Estate Commission.