With all the scams revolving around housing, you can’t be too careful about double-checking listings or making sure the person renting out a property is actually the owner.
Plenty of people have been scammed after pursuing ads listing rental properties and handing over a chunk of change — only to find that the property belongs to someone else and they’re a victim of fraud.
One woman on TikTok who goes by the handle @busymomonli has shared a video of a new issue. Though she seems to believe it was all a genuine accident, it’s still terrifying that this sort of mistake could take place.
She posted a doorbell camera video last week showing a man at her door ringing the bell while she was at work.
He was persistent, and soon four more people show up and waited on the porch with him.
“I’m thinking they’re maybe some religious group or salesman,” the woman said in a voiceover on the first video. “I am not sure at this point.”
@busymomonli Had I not had a Ring camera I would never have know this happened at all!! #ringdoorbell #houseforsale #realestatescrewup ♬ Oh No – Kreepa
In a later video she explained that the speaker on her front door camera wasn’t working at the time so she couldn’t communicate with the strangers.
Expecting them to leave after getting no response, @busymomonli was shocked when they persisted and eventually went around to the back of the house. She set off the alarm on the rear doorbell camera, and they seemed to move away.
But the man who arrived first then entered the back door and walked to the front and let the other four inside — this all despite the dog that was in the house.
“Now, mind you, my dog is home,” @busymomonli said. “Apparently not a very good guard dog, but she’s home.”
For 20 minutes, the band of strangers opened everything, went through the whole house and then left.
As the first man backed out of the driveway, the police arrived. Lots of police. In the second video detailing the debacle, @busymomonli said it must have been a slow day because of how many officers showed up.
@busymomonli Part 2 of the day the real estate agent showed my house even though it’s not for sale. #ringdoorbell #houseforsale #realestate ♬ Oh No – Kreepa
Apparently, the man was a real estate agent and had been showing the house. The problem was, the house wasn’t on the market.
User @busymomonli had returned to the house by that time and let the police in so they could search to see if anything had been taken. The real estate agent went back into the house, too, apologizing profusely for the mix-up.
In a third follow-up video, she said her back door had been left unlocked accidentally by her teenage son and that the real estate agent was supposed to be showing the house next-door.
He said the owner of the home had given him the go-ahead to go through the back door and let himself in — curiously similar circumstances, other than the fact that the inside of the two houses looked nothing alike.
“I don’t know how these people wouldn’t have noticed that it didn’t look like the photos,” she said in a fourth follow-up video.
Despite the suspicious nature of the event, @busymomonli said she would not press charges and it seemed like a genuine accident. She said she might contact the real estate licensing bureau, but that she didn’t think anything more was necessary.
“I don’t believe that they were casing my house or trying to sell my house out from under me,” she said in the third update video. “He did seem sincere.”
Whether or not ill intent was at play, @busymomonli has certainly demonstrated yet another way that doorbell cameras can be useful to homeowners.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.