I received an email from a guy from this company regarding my rental property I was advertising online. He stated that they had a client that was interested in my property. He identified his company as a real estate referral company and his email said that he had a deal for a client of his that "fell through". He went on to write that the reason he was emailing me was because his clients were looking for a home like mine.
It sounded like a scam right away, but I decided to contact him anyways just to find out more. When I inquired further about the company, he said that they are the largest referral company in the U. S (I'd never heard of them) and that their website receives 100 thousand hits and that they rent properties within 24-48 hours. He said I needed to sign his agreement and that he could then show his clients my home. I asked him what the fee was and he said it was one months rent (which is about three times higher than other similar companies) I told him that I needed to think about it and that I would call him if I was interested.
Everyday following that call, I was bombarded with calls from different people from their company. One guy, claiming to be the owner of the company, was extremely aggressive, stating things like "Do you want to rent your home or not?" and "My clients want your home" (which is strange because they never even saw my home) and "We can rent your home within the next couple of days, so when your mortgage payment is due, remember you could have paid us the money and rented the place!"
I admit that I had been having trouble renting my home. It had been on the market for a few months and I was getting frustrated. I decided to give these guys a shot. We talked once more, and I signed the agreement and sent it to them. I expected them to call me and set up some showings, but to my surprise, they never attempted to get a hold of me. Days and days went by, and I called them repeatedly. They didn't call me back, so I kept trying them over and over for what turned into a period of three and a half weeks! When I finally got through, they said that they had already shown my home to the clients and that it was too expensive! That was a complete lie!!! They had no way of showing my home, because I live there! They didn't have a key or the garage code or any way to access my property! I was outraged and told him that I wanted them to cancel my contract. As soon as I said that, he hung up on me! I called him back, and to no surprise, he didn't answer! Whats even worse, is that their agreement states that if I were to rent my home on my own, I would still owe them their fee! Luckily, the contract is only valid for 30 days, and it expired that week...
I made a mistake by trusting this company. They are scammers that get unsuspecting homeowners to sign up with them, and then they don't do anything they promised to do. They want you to rent your property while under contract with them so that they can collect their fee without doing anything. Don't use this company!!!
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