Rent Scams Targeting Vacant Foreclosed Homes Continue Duping Tenants, Increasing Workload For Cops; Utilities Report Increase In Sham Accounts

In Central Florida, the Orlando Sentinel reports:

• Neighbors in the northwest Orange County community of Rose Point noticed something unusual going on at the vacant, foreclosed house on Rywood Drive — a Rooms To Go truck was unloading furniture there.



• Community coordinator Rebekah Dulberg knew the house was under contract and could not understand why someone would be moving in before the sale had closed. Delving into the matter with law enforcement, other homeowners and a real-estate broker, Dulberg uncovered a rental scam at that house and another one nearby.

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• No one knows how pervasive the rental hoax has become in a state beleaguered by a shadow inventory of foreclosed-and-vacant houses. Utilities report an increase in sham accounts for getting water turned on, and law enforcement has made numerous arrests in other parts of the state. [...] One factor that has made it easier for con artists to pass off these rental houses as their own is that they are able to get the utilities turned on, Dulberg said.



• Among examples of the crime in this part of the state: A Polk County man was charged with an organized scheme to defraud using manufactured leases. Charges were filed against a 37-year-old Pasco County man who was operating a foreclosure-prevention business. And a Hillsborough County man recently pleaded guilty to organized fraud, theft and burglary for breaking into houses and moving tenants into them.

For more, see Rent scam targets vacant houses.