Denver Rental Scams More Prevalent, Elaborate

DENVER (CBS4) - Denver is experiencing its tightest rental market in a decade, which can put renters in a desperate situation and make them susceptible to scammers.

Emmy Mosteller is out $1,200. She recently moved here from Arizona. She left her daughter with family while she came here to get settled, and her boyfriend is working in another part of the state. She was looking for a home to bring her family back together again.

"We were just looking for a two-bedroom place as cheap as you can get it," Mosteller told CBS4.

She found an ad for a house in Denver for $600 a month. Mosteller thought it was perfect. That's when the hard sell began. She got text messages saying she needed to send the deposit and rent as soon as possible. She got a certificate of ownership for the house, personal pictures and even a scan of a passport with the name David Eric Ortiz.

"I felt a little more comfortable because there was a photo ID and name," Mosteller explained.

She was still skeptical, so she went by the address.

"I kind of peeked inside and there were boxes everywhere in the house," Mosteller said, further convincing her that the deal was real.

Mosteller felt like she was asking all the right questions and that she'd done her due diligence. She sent the $1,200 Walmart to Walmart via MoneyGram.

"That's when things started getting really weird. He wasn't answering phone calls... He wasn't returning texts," Mosteller said.

CBS4's Karen Morfitt called the phone number through which Mosteller was communicating with the scammers. No one answered, but two days later she got text messages trying to rent her the same Denver house. CBS4 searched the name David Eric Ortiz, and got hundreds of hits all across the nation. Morfitt then called the real owner of the Denver house. He confirmed that it's a rental property, but said he'd never heard of David Eric Ortiz and he rents the house for $1,600 -- not $600.

"If you hear, 'I'd like you to wire money,' if you hear, 'I'd like you to get a pre-paid card,' those are both red flags that something is wrong," Sgt. Steve Warneke with the Denver Police Department said.

Warnicke says that scams like this are becoming more prevalent and elaborate.

"You have an instance where they've personalized it by sending these photos, so you feel like you know the person and that's where they can get you," Warneke explained.

His best advice to everyone is do business face to face. He says prevention is the best protection against being scammed. Mosteller did file a police report, but there is little hope of getting her money back.

"I feel so stupid. I've let my boyfriend down. I've let my daughter down. I've let my family down. You just feel worthless when that happens," she said.

Mosteller and her boyfriend have started a crowdfunding campaign to try to raise the money they lost so that they can move ahead with getting a house here in Colorado. Visit it at http://www.gofundme.com/dr3nfw.

- Written for CBSDenver.com by Special Projects Producer Libby Smith