California’s billionaire playground on edge as new vacation scam steals tens of thousands from tourists

South Lake Tahoe vacationers are on notice after several “too good to be true” scams involving fake vacation rental listings on Craigslist were rumbled.

Vacationers noticed caution signs around the luxury destination warning of the made-up listings.

“I was just surprised to see a placard on the back of the house that said ‘if you rented on Craigslist, you’ve been scammed.’ And so that’s the gist of it,” Ryan Lundquist, who is visiting the area, told KCRA.

South Lake Tahoe is the largest city around the lake, which is known for its crystal-clear blue water and mountain views.

One vacation rental agent told of the tragic story involving a South African woman spending lavishly on her vacation in vain.

“I have property back here about a block behind the office. A neighbor called one day, and there was a young girl sitting in the driveway in tears,” Michelle Benedict of Pinnacle Lake Tahoe Getaways said.

“She had gotten a work visa from South Africa and she paid someone $10,000 for the summer to rent a cabin that was a vacation rental. We ended up calling the police and they came and helped her find other accommodations,” Benedict added.

She said most of the scams come from Craigslist, an aging forum website where users can have a level of anonymity.

Benedict says the scammer will snatch photos and descriptions off vacation rental listings and post it themselves.

“Most of the scams come off of Craigslist. Someone takes our photos and our description and posts it online onto Craigslist,” she said.

One of the red flags buyers are advised to look out for, Benedict said, is if vacation listing sellers ask for non-protected cash apps like Venmo. She recommended verifying the legitimacy of the rental through the city before paying.

“The city of South Lake Tahoe maintains a database. You can search to see whether it is actually a real vacation rental,” Benedict said.

Very low prices are also a red flag, experts said. “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” they told KCRA.

South Lake Tahoe is on the southern shore of the beautiful lake, just east of the Nevada border, in El Dorado County.

The city is about 100 miles west of Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The Post has reached out to Airbnb and Craigslist for comment.

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