0:00
it happened to one Santa Barbara couple
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and the IT team learned it could happen
0:05
too Eric th and his wife Cataline
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recently retired to Santa Barbara they
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put their Northern California home on
0:11
the market I get a text from my pool guy
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saying do you know there's people at
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your pool Eric's home security camera
0:18
spotted a family heading to his backyard
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pool where they soaked up the sun my
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mind was spinning it was crazy to hear
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that you know it's a violation right I
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mean this your property you don't expect
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to hear that people that you don't know
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are there Eric's pool guy put the family
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on the phone they told Eric they'd
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rented his pool through swimley a site
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where you can rent private backyards by
0:40
the hour he said your pool is listed
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there and I said no it's not your
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trespass me you need to leave or I'm
0:47
going to call the police but sure enough
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Eric's pool was listed on swimple but he
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didn't do it apparently a crook posted
0:54
Eric's pool snatching pictures of it
0:57
from Real Estate sites to pocket the $46
0:59
an rental fee I'm shocked right How
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could somebody post a listing without
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verifying that they actually own the
1:07
property a good question we ask swimley
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that too the answer they don't confirm
1:12
the person listing the property owns it
1:14
but swimley did say once a listing is
1:16
posted it's not immediately searchable
1:19
on its site first the company uses fraud
1:21
detection to catch bogus listings which
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are removed within 24 to 48 hours but
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that didn't happen for Eric and swimly
1:30
didn't remove his fake listing until he
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reached out to NBC they can talk till
1:34
the cows come home that they protect you
1:37
but I don't believe it the IT team was
1:40
curious about Swim's fraud detection so
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we teamed up with our sister station in
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the Bay Area here's the pool I posted
1:47
that I don't own Our IT team producer
1:49
listed a backyard pool for rent but the
1:52
property is owned by an NBC boss in the
1:54
Bay Area in turn I'm going to try to
1:59
post listing a Bay Area intern posted
2:02
our producers La rooftop patio for rent
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she grabbed the image from the real
2:06
estate site Zillow it's asking me to
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finish listing both properties were
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listed and immediately searchable on
2:13
swimley site the listings were there for
2:16
weeks I think that's appalling to be
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honest that they can take listings for
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pools that they've never confirmed that
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somebody owns that property we asked
2:26
swimley what happened it said the
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company's extreme growth resulted in
2:30
some instances of fraud slipping through
2:32
its cracks it insisted fake listings are
2:35
extremely uncommon and it's committed to
2:38
catching fraudsters to help do that it
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said it's added additional safeguards
2:43
like adding a button so users can easily
2:45
flag suspicious activity I don't own
2:47
this pool but even after this response
2:49
from swimley our fake listings were
2:52
still on the site until we finally took
2:54
them down Eric says it's a warning for
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all homeowners I just want people to
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know that this you know especially if
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you've got your home for sale you need
3:04
to watch out for this um you know a lot
3:06
of times properties are vacant for a
3:09
time now here's an easy way to protect
3:12
your property you can remove photos of
3:14
your home from Real Estate sites and we
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have step-by-step information for you
3:18
about how to do that on our website
3:20
nbcla.com this should help keep you safe
3:23
from this scam or others like it
