GREELEY - A warning to watch out for people trying to take advantage of the hot rental market. One woman says she almost got ripped off, and she wants to warn others.
9Wants to Know followed a newstip to Greeley where a good deal turned out to be anything but.
When Amy Maddox found a three bedroom house on Craigslist for $750 a month, she thought she was getting a steal.
It turns out someone who doesn't even own the house was trying to steal from her.
"I was pretty excited about this place," Maddox said.
It was cozy, charming, and cheap.
"It sounded perfect, right in our price range. It was a house," Maddox said.
Maddox quickly responded to a Craigslist advertisement.
"I got an email response back," Maddox said.
Someone using the name Walter Graber said he was the owner, and had moved to California at the last-minute.
"He was going to have me fill out an application. There was a deposit of $700 that I'd have to mail to him, and then he'd mail me the key," Maddox said.
That sounded fishy to Maddox.
"So I asked him if he could send me the deed," Maddox said.
Graber sent her an official looking deed of land. Broker Diane Quigley of Greeley-based True Abundance Property Management says there's just one problem.
"This is a false deed," Quigley said.
Weld County property records confirm Walter Graber does not own the house.
9Wants to Know asked Graber via text message if he owns the house and he replied "sure I do," but stopped responding when we called his bluff.
"It's kind of scary that people would even do this," Quigley said
Quigley represents the real owners and knows demand for rentals is high.
"I manage 400 units. I have 1-percent that's vacant," Quigley said.
Anxious to find a place, Maddox says she likely would have sent the money, if not for one thing.
"I was actually one of the people that rented from Greg Castle," Maddox said.
The 9Wants to Know investigators exposed Castle in 2009 for illegally renting out homes he didn't own or manage.
Castle is now out of prison.
Maddox knows others are out there, trying to take advantage of renters like her.
"You just want to believe that it's true," Maddox said. "It's scary and I know a lot of people are going through it."
Quigley says the bottom line is to know who you're renting from. Never send money or give personal information on an application, without seeing the property first.
And remember, especially in this rental market, if it seems too to be true, it probably is.
