Medicine Hat, AB – The website known as Prop2Go has been taking some negative publicity as of late following a bit of an issue.
Earlier this week, CHAT News reported there were fraudulent home listings on the website.
That information is correct however, the website itself is not a scam.
CEO of Prop2Go Jason Richard explains.
“What we specialize in is advertising houses that are for rent, lease or sale across Canada,” explained Richard. ” “Basically, we operate like Kijiji so people can post online listings for free.”
Richard then furthered his comments by saying users are posting fraudulent listings on their website.
“They’re going on to sites like Royal LePage or Re/Max and they’re pulling pictures or descriptions from there. They’re saying the property is for rent and it’s not. They’re trying to get down payments ahead of time and trying to rip people off.”
Thankfully, Richard says nobody that he has spoken to has been ‘ripped off’.
“None of them sent them any money. I don’t believe they got scammed. We’re not in the business of taking peoples personal information. We’re into property advertising. There was totally a huge misconception.”
So, how would a person know if the listing is legitimate?
“Well, you can’t really tell by just looking at it. If the price is too good to be true, that should be some sort of indication that something is going on. Sometimes there are really good deals on listings, but if a place looks like a $2,500 home and it’s listed for $900, there’s probably something going on there.”
Richard says the real way a buyer finds out if a deal is legitimate or not, is when they contact the person who posted the ad.
“If they ask for money up front, that should be an immediate signal. Do not do it, get away from these guys, they’re scammers. Not too many people will ask for that kind of stuff ahead of time. If it was me, I would never give out any money before doing a walk through of the property and shaking the sellers hand.”
Richard says his company has taken steps to mitigate the issue.
“As we receive feedback from property seekers about these properties being fraudulent or scams, we take the listings down. We’re trying to do the best job that we can.”
Prop2Go posts roughly 200,000 listings a day. Right now, it’s about 50,000-60,000 and Richard says they just can’t monitor every listing to know if it’s legitimate or not.
“If we were a larger company, we could probably put more checks and balances on these things, but we don’t have the $100 million budget like Kijiji does. It’s definitely frustrating on our end. We have to maintain a good product, but it’s taking time away from other priorities.”
And thanks to the scammers, Richard is now doing damage control.
“I’ve been fielding calls from realtors and police from across the nation. It’s definitely impacting our reputation and that’s really tough when you’re a small business.”
