{"id":17639,"date":"2026-07-26T09:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=17639"},"modified":"2026-07-26T09:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:11:18","slug":"police-warn-of-rental-scam-trending-on-social-media-in-bellbrook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=17639","title":{"rendered":"Police warn of rental scam trending on social media in Bellbrook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ic-cdn.flipboard.com\/whio.com\/84c95ae7f9cd351d9f2955254e71e34aba60f633\/_large.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">BELLBROOK \u2014 Looking for a home or apartment to rent in part of Greene County?<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\"><b>[DOWNLOAD: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whio.com\/mobile-apps\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.whio.com\/mobile-apps\/\"><b>Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a><b>]<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">The Bellbrook Police Department posted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo?fbid=1483892797100049&amp;set=a.298177182338289\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo?fbid=1483892797100049&amp;set=a.298177182338289\">social media<\/a> that scammers are looking to take advantage of residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\"><b>TRENDING STORIES:<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">An ad listed on TikTok showed an apartment on Dane Lane for an attractive price.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">\u201cAfter the \u2018listing agent\u2019 was contacted, we were directed to another website, which would have collected personal as well as bank account information to collect a security deposit and 1st month\u2019s rent,\u201d said Bellbrook Police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">TikTok deleted the fake ad after an investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">Bellbrook Police have these tips for renters:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use only established rental service agents or hire a professional real estate agent to help find your new home or apartment.<\/li>\n<li>Always drive by to look at the property when renting, if possible. In the ad below, the \u201capartment\u201d doesn\u2019t exist on Dane Lane!<\/li>\n<li>Never pay for a security deposit or 1st month rent with cash or gift cards, or other untraceable means.<\/li>\n<li>Confirm the identity of your landlord through county tax records. The Greene County GIS website is available for your use: <a href=\"https:\/\/gis.greenecountyohio.gov\/gims\/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExNlUwaWVkNXdyMmpYbXVlRHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6zaHeFoMzKZLNnKu8r9hxh7isKkw9PwyHMo2YkrB4QQs7oSvBQU7xrHHQ_PA_aem_wCQMj2cVCkXxe9XP5Zzd3Q\"><b>https:\/\/gis.greenecountyohio.gov\/gims\/<\/b><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Review the lease agreement before paying any fees or rent.<\/li>\n<li>Scammers are counting on you to act quickly\u2014slow down, verify the listing, and protect your money and personal information.<\/li>\n<li>Use a reverse-image search tool, such as TinEye or Google, to verify that the image of the property is an actual listing and not copied from another website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">\u201cIf a rental deal seems too good to be true, it probably is!\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\">They encouraged people to share this information and report suspicious rental listings. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3Dpfbid032bm6AbxUhpFM5M22P3t9WCU73WDwxLDJQJkwZUJMcxTJPHFh4LL8nWE5PSwAAfyXl%26id%3D100064380295680&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"737\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 lofITx body-paragraph\"><b>[SIGN UP: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/membercenter.whio.com\/newsletters\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/membercenter.whio.com\/newsletters\"><b>WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a><b>]<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script id=\"facebookSdk\" defer=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BELLBROOK \u2014 Looking for a home or apartment to rent in part of Greene County? [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The Bellbrook Police Department posted on social media that scammers are looking to take advantage of residents. TRENDING STORIES: An ad listed on TikTok showed an apartment on Dane Lane&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cmg-cmg-tv-10040-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/v2\/https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com%2Fcmg%2FCHFTRZZ7O5FZ3LXXGG5NFHPYVU.jpg?auth=74b134ec591fca65f9570d7a3d5927f2552fda77deb3bb36cc5ad740420a5dc6&width=1200&height=630&smart=true","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}