Scammers list Germantown house on Facebook for $1,000

GERMANTOWN, Tenn — A house being rented by a family in Germantown was listed for sale for $1,000 on Facebook Marketplace by scammers.

“My daughter was, yes, searching for houses on the Facebook marketplace, and this came up on the Facebook Marketplace,” says the mother of the family. “‘Oh that’s my mom’s house.’ So, she sent me the pictures of it to let me know.”

The family wants to stay anonymous for safety reasons but on Facebook Marketplace, they have nine pictures of the home on Charstone Drive in Germantown.

“It’s the pictures from the inside of my home which, obviously they got off of Zillow in the first place,” says the renter.

It also has a description explaining how the home is move-in ready and its address.

She says everything is correct except for the price. She immediately told the owner after discovering the post.

“She was actually shocked and wanted to make sure that we reported, which I have,” she said.

Daniel Irwin with Better Business Bureau says the family did everything correctly.

“Sites like Facebook marketplace are not vetting those things, so you have to,” said Irwin. “You just can’t believe everything that you see.”

He says you have to become a pro at vetting because some have become pros at scamming.

“We give the information to the scammers. So, that’s why it’s happening more and more,” said Irwin. “With things like AI it’s going to be harder and harder to detect what’s real and what’s not so I expect this problem to get worse.”

Irwin says to prevent becoming a victim, be careful what you are putting on the internet.

He also says before giving any information you should always ask as many questions as possible and compare what you are seeing with legitimate sites.

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