Rental Fraud on the Rise During COVID-19

The prevalence of identity theft and rental fraud always rises when money is scarce. And the drastic economic situation caused by the COVID-19 crisis proves the point. For property management companies, rental fraud is the form of identity theft that impacts their bottom line most, and COVID-19 is making risk management more critical than ever. In a recent RealPage webcast, several industry experts weighed in on the damage caused by rental fraud during COVID-19, and what steps can be taken to reduce the risk. Click here to see a free RealPage webcast, COVID-19: Impact on Risk, Evictions and Screening, and learn more about renter fraud and what you can do to reduce risk. Matt Davis, RealPage SVP/GM, Financial Services puts a number to the risk of identity fraud: “The Federal Trade Commission came out with an analysis last year on fraud, and they identified that the fraud industry is now $1.7 billion annually. And of that, we had a 56% growth rate just within our industry of rental properties. This analysis was done prior to the recession that has just begun. So, I would expect from my experience that 2020 is going to be a 200% increase over last year. And then we'll have to see what happens in 2021. But the biggest challenge, now that the criminals have pivoted to this industry, is that they're here, and they're coming, and so we've got to take more aggressive action against renter ID theft.” Webcast participant Robin Fluharty, Implementation and Compliance Manager for Pegasus Residential, notes that assumed identities are becoming more of the norm, and the risk is enormous. “For our industry, we're talking about lost rent revenue, damage and repair, legal costs and the time that the unit is out of the market during which we're not capturing that revenue. We need to stop the perpetrators of fraud before they gain their way into an apartment community,” she says. Right now, property managers need to be extra cautious about wh...