Just discovered that my rental properties are fraudulently listed on both Trulia and Zillow. I would not have know this, except that guests have contacted me through Airbnb and V-bo for verification. I checked Zillow and did indeed see one of my properties listed there in their rental category. It’s only been up for about 10 days. I tried contacted Zillow but haven’t been able to talk to a live person. Has anyone else had this experience. If so, how did you handle it? There’s a link to report the listing on Zillow but it requires my name and e-mail address to submit. I’m not sure if I should trust that either!
Don’t trust it the report this listing link.
I have a Zillow Rental manager account. There is no listing type “vacation”.
Zillow says STR is against their TOS.
I’ve looked at other rentals on Zillow-none have a report this listing link.
BTW Zillow has tightened their “listing offered by” identification requirements. I must submit more information before I can re-list any of my rentals.
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Was the guest message along the lines of “I’m interested in your rental but I don’t know which listing is yours” with a hyperlink to the zillow listing?
Someone else reported something similar I think about two weeks ago but now they have deleted their post so I can’t check. In any case, the scam is to send you hyperlink that you click on and enter log in information and now they have captured your log in information. Did you do that?
I had no idea Zillow or Trulia were doing short term rentals. That would set off my spidey senses.
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When you automate too much, scammers figure it out and take advantage of it. When Zillow was buying and flipping homes (something they stopped doing very recently), they bought a home in my neighborhood. The owner had died, a scammer forged documents and pretended to own it, and sold the home to Zillow. Zillow then sold/disposed of the contents of the house. About a month after the owner had died, the daughter of the deceased owner came over and found people moving out the furniture and called the police, but it was too late, they had already taken almost everything.
Correction: I found my property in Zillow’s rental listings, not vacation rental listings. (Don’t cancel me!) Update: After flagging it, Zillow investigated and took the listing “Off Market.” When I asked how to prevent this from happening again, they recommended I “claim” the property on their website, which I did, but I’m not convinced this will eliminate the possibility of fraud reoccurring. Has anyone else claimed their property on Zillow/Trulia? Apparently it’s important to do!
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Yes@KKC, I wrote about the potential guest asking me “which listing” with a link to the “other one”. I knew not to click on the link, but didn’t, until reporting here, know not to re-type the link. Fortunately, the link didn’t respond. I then found out here it was a common scam, and to NEVER go to such a link.
I have. Quick easy. They send me periodic updates on value & neighborhood information.
I have used Zillow Rental Manager for my LTR so I claimed my rentals & the home I live in.
Before home security cameras became common, this was an everyday event for the occasional use, vacation homes.
Also people would rent a furnished condo or home 30-60 days off season then sell everything the last week of their stay & move on. When the owner arrived the next day or so later, “we don’t know what happened. When we moved out, it was all there.”