A wave of frauds perpetrated on Craigslist are targeting Bend residents looking for rental properties, according to local property managers.

Annie Packman, leasing specialist for Morris Hayden Property Management, said her office has been flooded by calls from would-be renters seeing ads on Craigslist with two different prices and two different contacts. They’re trying to figure out who actually manages the properties they’re seeing for rent online.

According to property management companies and Bend Police Sgt. Nick Parker, the scam works like this: Scammers identify rental properties, sometimes copying property management website listings and changing just the contact information and the price, usually much lower than the real monthly rent. Then the scammers email would-be renters, eventually convincing some to wire them a deposit.

Often it’s a waste of time for renters who need places to live. But sometimes, Packman said, it’s even worse. When Packman was showing a home in Northwest Bend recently, people showed up who had been communicating by email with a scammer about the house.

They were under the impression the home was renting for $1,000 a month; Morris Hayden was renting the property for $1,695.

“They had been communicating with who they thought was the owner, and the scammer was using the owner’s name. They must have looked it up on DIAL (the Deschutes County property records website),” Packman said. “We’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from people trying to figure out what are legitimate listings.”

And last month, her office received a call from a person who was waiting outside a house.

“They were there with a U-Haul, waiting to get keys, and they weren’t sure so they’d Googled the address and found our name and called us to see because they couldn’t get ahold of the person they’d been emailing with,” Packman said. “Because this is such a tight housing market people are looking for a great deal and ignoring the ‘too good to be true’ thing and the red flags of bad grammar and odd syntax and everything that’s going on in these emails.”

Morris Hayden posts all its listings to Craigslist, and renews them every few days. Packman said her company uses a website that makes the posts look professional, laid out in an HTML format with photos, and uses the same format on its website.

Craigslist spam has long been an issue, Packman said, but it seems the scammers are stepping up their efforts.

“They’re really targeting this area,” she said.

Michelle Bunting, president of Bend Property Management, said her last run-in with a Craigslist scammer occurred in August, but it was a similar situation as Packman’s.

“They hack into your stuff and then list it as their own listing,” she said. “They say the cost is always significantly less and it’s horrible for the people that get scammed. It’s just good people looking for a place to live, and it’s too good of a deal to be true.”

Police Sgt. Parker said the department handled three rental scams through Craigslist in September and October.

“People would find a place posted out of Florida, and they sent money orders,” Parker said, noting his department received similar reports of vehicle scams on Craigslist, as well as a scam through Match.com.

“Probably the biggest problem we’ve found is that although renters go by and look at the house and notice it’s vacant … they don’t actually meet somebody at the location and take a look at the place before sending money over,” he said.

And the cases, unfortunately, are unlikely to be solved, Parker said.

“It’s really tough because it’s usually $1,000 or $2,000 and so extradition (from other states) generally doesn’t happen, much less tracking the (perpetrators) down,” Parker said. “Getting other agencies to deal with it is hard, because they’re dealing with the same crimes as we are, they’re busy, so usually they go unsolved.”

Packman and Bunting have advice for those using Craigslist and other websites to find new housing.

Both said people should always meet in person to see the home, and should never send money without meeting the property owner or manager. Bunting suggested checking Deschutes County property records, and to look for houses advertised specifically by local property management companies.

“I would Google or look on Craigslist and search for the same address to see if there’s multiple postings with different prices,” she said. “And check that the posting has a property manager name and phone number, that it doesn’t ask you to text them.”