If it's Craigslist.org, follow this instruction:

"If you suspect that an item posted for sale on Craigslist may be part of a scam, please e-mail the details to abuse@craigslist.org." In your message, be sure to include the Web address used in the scammer's e-mail.

Craigslist deleted the ad after Lawson called, effectively stopping the scam before the potential renter sent any money to the scammer. ReMax eventually rented the house to the person.

If a Yahoo e-mail account is involved, go to http://help.yahoo/l/us/yahoo/abuse/ and click "Someone is pretending to be me on Yahoo. What can I do?"

Yahoo spokeswoman Kelly Podbloy said, "With enough information, our team will be happy to investigate." But "there's also a privacy issue at stake. We would never be able to share that information" with anyone other than a law-enforcement agency. "We could work with law enforcement."

Also, it's not a crime in Virginia for someone to impersonate a company, Geller said. "There is no state law that prohibits an individual from misrepresenting himself, other than as a law-enforcement officer."

In a recent incident at the University of Richmond in which a man brandished a pellet gun, he was charged with a felony for hiding his identity. But that law refers to hiding one's physical identity by wearing, say, a fake beard or a mask while impersonating a law-enforcement officer, Geller said.

Another issue is that on the Internet, crooks can change identities in a flash, be in several places at once, and then disappear. Tracking them down takes more time, resources and expertise than many law-enforcement agencies can spare.

Geller said it can take years to catch an Internet crook, and only some agencies -- among them the FBI -- can investigate across state lines. A scammer can be across the street or overseas.

Determining which state has jurisdiction can be difficult, too, Geller said.

. . .

How did the Internet crook's scheme to defraud the ReMax Success customer get interrupted?

ReMax Success' rental division, Allegiance Property Management, listed a house for rent online.

The scammer copied the ad from Rentalhomes.com site, put the fake one on Craigslist.org and set up a Yahoo e-mail account fraudulently using the Allegiance property manager's name in order to correspond with victims.

The potential renter saw the ad and e-mailed the scammer, who sent the renter to see the home. It so happened that the owner of the home, who hadn't vacated it yet, was in the yard. The owner "even let them in," Lawson said. "It alarmed us." Both the potential renter and the homeowner thought he had been sent by Allegiance.

The homeowner then gave the renter the correct business card and rental application.

"Once the person contacted us to rent the home, we found out about the scam," Lawson said. "We do not know how many people they have scammed."

. . .

To keep from getting duped, real estate agencies and consumers should educate themselves about -- and learn to avoid -- the many rental scam permutations online. Search "rent scams."
Contact Iris Taylor at (804) 649-6349 or itaylor@timesdispatch.com.