Renters thinking they’ve snagged a good deal on Facebook have been let down when homeowners Mark Feuerborn and Jessica Parks have to let them know they’ve been victims of a scam.
Feuerborn and his girlfriend, Parks, have lived in Eudora for just a few weeks, but have witnessed two different instances of people falling for a scam involving their house.
Someone on Facebook Marketplace going by the name Stanley Clifford is luring renters in with low rent prices. When they come to tour the home, they find out it’s already owned and not for rent. Feuerborn has had to be the bearer of bad news.
The Facebook account claiming to be renting the home also had at least one of the potential renters send a $75 application fee over Zelle, he said. Feuerborn said it appears he ghosts the people after they pay.
The account does not include a profile picture and shows “Stanley Clifford” just joined Facebook in 2025.
They filed a police report and reported the home listing on Facebook, as well as the account. The first time the listing was reported by Parks it was taken down, but it was reposted shortly after. It was reported again after the second couple came to tour the house. Seeing that the account was created earlier this year was another hint it was a scammer, Parks said. A lot of the fake accounts also have more than a dozen listings, many of which with the same photos but listing them in different cities, she said.
Parks said it feels violating to see photos of their house, along with their address posted on Facebook Marketplace. She said she was grateful that the two times people have come to the house for supposed tours, they have been understanding. It could’ve been a different story if people got upset with them.
“It’s honestly like a borderline dangerous situation that someone is doing this,” she said.
The scammer’s account is not getting taken down so it seems they are just reposting the listing, Feuerborn said.
There is no indication this scammer is from the area because the photos used were from the original listing from realty websites, Feuerborn said.
“But what was really eye opening when Jessica was just looking through apartment listings and home listings on Facebook marketplace was, she was really surprised by the number of listings that had a low rent and then also were being posted by Facebook accounts that were very, very recently created. So, this could be a very widespread scam that’s happening in multiple places across Kansas,” he said.
Feuerborn said Police Chief Wes Lovett told him that police departments are advised to have victims of scams report them to the attorney general’s office.
The Kansas Attorney General’s office encourages consumers to call its protection hotline at (785) 296-3751 or file a complaint online if they have been victim to a scam.
Zillow offers the following tips on how to spot rental scams:
- If a property owner pressures you to send personal information or money before seeing the property
- The opportunity is too good to be true
- Requests to send payment using untraceable payment methods
- The person listing the rental is unwilling to meet
- You can’t verify the property is actually for rent
People need to be careful who they interact with on the app and wait to transfer any money until they have met face-to-face or seen a reliable source other than Facebook, Parks said.
