Phony rental postings on Craigslist using stolen IDs
By Jeremy Lee
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HONOLULU (KITV) — The rental in the Craigslist post looks like a deal.
Free parking in Waikiki, it advertises. A 1 bedroom condo is listed a half block from the beach at $50 per night.
The person behind the posting responded in a text that there was no time to view the property due to “security reasons,” but to send a deposit to hold the room using an electronic cash payment app. That was red flag number 1.
Number 2 came after the poster texted a photo ID saying “Here is a copy of my ID.”
But the man in the ID says he has never posted a condo rental on craigslist. He’s a local. And KITV tracked him down. “I had gotten one message on LinkedIn from a lady that said, ‘Are you legit renting condos?’ I said no,” Jon said.
The message Jon received last month startled him. It read, “Hi, confirming here if you are renting condos in Honolulu. Or if someone is using your ID to do that.”
The woman later revealed the photo of Jon’s ID had been sent to her via an 808 cell number.
It’s the same 808 number that responded to the listing KITV responded to. We were told to rush over a deposit using PayPal or the banking app Zelle. The poster then followed up aggressively for a response.
Jon says he made the mistake of sending a picture of his ID when he was looking to rent a place Memorial Day for a small vacation rental gathering.
“They sent me a picture of their driver’s license and said, hey can you respond back and make sure you’re legit. I was like ok alright, here’s my license. And there were just little things that didn’t add up. Weird ways of phrasing things or spelling things,” Jon told KITV. He started to think the poster was in another country.
Jon didn’t hand over any money he says, but the photo of the ID is now out there. The ad currently posted by the account using Jon’s ID misclassifies the Waikiki rental under the Big Island. It has occasional errors in grammar, or the use of a wrong preposition.
In texts, the person was overly formal, constantly referring to the recipient as “Sir.” Texts came in as early as 5:46 in the morning demanding payment.
Jon isn’t the only one misrepresented here in Hawaii. Harrison Beacher is a real Washington DC Realtor who has been contacted by others about fake postings coming up under his name here in this last year.
Beacher told KITV, “Because it’s a part of my business to be verified and confirmed legit by actual referrals and people looking for me, I do have an established and updated presence on pretty much every social media channel.”
And that presence is being used by the poster for a 1 bed room in Waikiki at an unrealistic 870 dollars a month. The poster replied using Beacher’s name and an email address claiming he was Beacher.
The Beacher doppelgänger also tried to direct respondents to another rental site that requires sign up, but then the correspondence would go cold. The account posted another listing as recently as July.
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