About a month ago, fellow Homescape blogger Frank Schulte-Ladbeck, wrote a great post alerting our readers about real estate and apartment scams on Craigslist.org, the popular classified advertising Web site. While the Internet can be an easy breeding ground for scammers, law officials across the country have started to aggressively seek out these online criminals. Busted New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced last Thursday that an undercover investigation found a New York City company acting as an apartment broker used bait-and-switch schemes on Craigslist to bilk 4,000 New Yorkers out of nearly $1 million dollars. The investigation led the attorney general’s office to bring criminal charges against Innovative Apartments and Screening Services Inc. for scheming to defraud customers and operating without a license. Igor “Bobby” Portnov, Boris “Brian” Portnov, Nader Jaber, all of Teaneck, NJ, and Brooke Corio of Staten Island were charged with felony fraud for a scheme that enticed people in search of rentals to pay hundreds in bogus search fees. Cuomo revealed that his office’s undercover investigation found Innovative Apartments charged customers $200 for credit reports and background checks that were never conducted, and advertised “exclusive” listings on Craigslist.org that were actually apartments that did not exist. The scam The investigation discovered that from December 18, 2005, to May 21, 2008, Innovative Apartmen ...
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About a month ago, fellow Homescape blogger Frank Schulte-Ladbeck, wrote a great post alerting our readers about real estate and apartment scams on Craigslist.org, the popular classified advertising Web site. While the Internet can be an easy breeding ground for scammers, law officials across the country have started to aggressively seek out these online criminals. Busted New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced last Thursday that an undercover investigation found a New York City company acting as an apartment broker used bait-and-switch schemes on Craigslist to bilk 4,000 New Yorkers out of nearly $1 million dollars. The investigation led the attorney general’s office to bring criminal charges against Innovative Apartments and Screening Services Inc. for scheming to defraud customers and operating without a license. Igor “Bobby” Portnov, Boris “Brian” Portnov, Nader Jaber, all of Teaneck, NJ, and Brooke Corio of Staten Island were charged with felony fraud for a scheme that enticed people in search of rentals to pay hundreds in bogus search fees. Cuomo revealed that his office’s undercover investigation found Innovative Apartments charged customers $200 for credit reports and background checks that were never conducted, and advertised “exclusive” listings on Craigslist.org that were actually apartments that did not exist. The scam The investigation discovered that from December 18, 2005, to May 21, 2008, Innovative Apartmen ...