ANDERSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — In the age of the internet, scammers have become more aggressive and also more creative — and an Anderson Township Zillow listing is the latest victim in that trend.
Located at 7252 Brixton Lane in Hamilton County, the listing circulated on Reddit due to its "too good to be true" price. The five bedroom, six bathroom house on more than 4,000 square feet was listed at the steal-worthy $14,239 — a price cut of $879,800. The post also said that it was a cash-only sale that would be great for a first-time home buyer.
Zillow said they removed the fraudulent post and now show the home with its original $900,000 sale price from 2020.
"Zillow strives to provide a safe online community on our platform and we go to great lengths to monitor activity and inform our users of the possibility of scams and how to protect themselves," a Zillow spokesperson said.
Zillow uses a number of different tools to "prevent inappropriate content from publishing," but the company realizes scams are a reality and those processes aren't perfect, so they urge users to report any suspicious listings or posts.
"If a listing is found to be fraudulent after it's posted, our team takes steps to remove it from our site as quickly as possible," a Zillow spokesperson said.
Zillow also has a page on its website centered around scams and internet fraud. The page details the red flags surrounding scams, how to report them and also gives examples of possible cases.
"If you find a fraudulent listing on Zillow, please report it by clicking 'Report Listing' and selecting 'Listing seems to be fraudulent or illegal' on the listing page in question," the scam awareness page says.
However, if you believe you have already been scammed Zillow urges users to report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission.
For any Zillow listing that is found to be a scam, the company will pull that posting and block the user from posting in the future.
