1. Don’t give cash or wire money

This is Rule No. 1. Criminals prefer to work in cash, for what are probably obvious reasons. Once they accept checks, they have to create fake identities, which not only adds criminal counts but also risks capture. No one wants to get caught on surveillance camera at a bank.

The same goes for money orders.

But don’t stop there: You also want to avoid giving checks to someone who may be hustling bank account and routing numbers. Counterfeiters can print their own checks using your bank numbers and signature, then spend from your account. That’s why a combination of safeguards is necessary. Checks are safer than cash, but read on to ensure you’re giving those checks to legitimate landlords.

2. Research what the price really should be

If the rate is too good to be true, it probably is. Scammers aren’t interested in a long term relationship; they just want to get a chunk of change up front.

Get more tips on how to avoid rental scams after the jump:

3. Ask yourself, ‘Why is this owner so  eager to have me?’

Legitimate property owners and managers take the time to ask questions and screen potential tenants. They can’t risk renting to someone who might cause damage or fall behind on payments.

They may take a small fee ($15-$35) with your application to pay for a background screening, or a deposit in the form of a cashier’s check to hold the apartment if they need to take it off the market for a day. Most will not even accept cash, saying they don’t want to risk holding cash. A cashier’s check at least requires identification to cash and can be traced.

But a scam artist will often be eager to close the deal with cash on the spot, and may very well have a good story to tell about why he is in such a hurry: He is moving for a job; others have expressed an interest. Don’t fall for it.

4. Pay attention to any odd behavior

In Florida recently, a scam artist who appeared legitimate in every other way – she had business cards, contracts, key codes, a professional demeanor – displayed one piece of odd behavior that alone should have tipped off her victims, police said: She parked her car around the corner and walked to the house, explaining that she’d been showing a nearby house.

Legitimate listing agents “don’t come walking up with a clipboard in their hand,” said Lee, the police investigator. They pull into the driveway.

“Just be aware,” he said. “Get a tag number off a vehicle. If a person walks up, like this one, from two blocks away, that should be a clue.”

Observe their behavior, and trust your gut if something seems odd.

“Do they have a set of keys? Are they entering through the back door? Just how they’re acting — does the story make sense?” said Jesse Holland, a regional vice president for the Institute of Real Estate Management.

5. Collect documents

Ask for copies of everything: checks, money orders, the application, receipts, the lease.

“You want to create an audit trail and a paper trail to protect yourself,” said Holland, who also serves as president of Sunrise Management and Consulting, in upstate New York. “That proves that you are entitled to rent it and have gone through a legitimate process, as opposed to, ‘You give me $700 cash.’”

Be aware that a savvy scam artist can easily create his own documents using samples from the Web. So paperwork by itself is not enough to protect you. However, should another sign tip you off, your papers could help authorities prosecute the con artist.

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The scam takes on several forms, but here’s the basic formula:

A con artist finds a property, pretends to be the owner, lists it online, then communicates with the would-be renter and takes a cash deposit.

The renter is left with nothing or ends up squatting on someone else’s vacant property while paying “rent” to a fraudster, all unbeknownst to the property’s real owner.

Familiarizing yourself with the scam can help you avoid being one of its unwitting victims. With that in mind, here’s a quick rundown of its various forms, followed by a list of tips on how to avoid falling prey to even the cleverest trickster.

A pretend owner ‘rents’ out a vacant home

Even criminals are subject to market conditions. If thousands of abandoned homes sit empty and thousands of people are in need of cheap housing, someone is eventually going to put the two together, legal or not.

In this case, the scam artist steps in to take advantage of the situation.

He finds an abandoned property, or two or three (these days, it’s not hard), and creates an online advertisement pretending to be either the owner or someone authorized to rent on the owner’s behalf.

He then breaks in, sometimes changing the locks, and typically asks to be paid in cash. In Las Vegas, a woman arrested for just such a scam had provided a contract and written rental receipts to a mother of two, and instructed the woman to meet her each month in a public location to pay her cash “rent,” according to a story in the Las Vegas Sun.

The real owner, who lived in California, arrived one day to find a family living in the home.

Tenants in such cases did not intend to occupy a house illegally and aren’t going to be charged with a crime, police say. But the renters are going to have to move on short notice and are unlikely to see their security deposits again.

A fake agent pretends to rent a foreclosed property then splits before the renter moves in

This scam starts in much the same way, except the con artist supplies a throwaway or fake phone number and never supplies the keys to the property. He may also collect a deposit from several victims at a time.

In this case, the victim is out both the money and a place to live.

In Miami recently, a con artist went so far as to create a fake warranty deed and introduce himself to neighbors as the new owner.

As it turned out, several others had handed over deposits, too, and had shown up with moving trucks only to find they were unable to get in.

A fake property manager pretends to rent out a home that’s for sale

In this case, the con artist hijacks listings of homes that are for sale or rent by legitimate agencies. He may rewrite the ad a bit before posting it online (often on Craigslist, where posts are free), including undercutting the original price by as much as half.

When interested tenants respond, eager to secure such a good deal, the con artist may claim to need a cash deposit or application information – containing personal data that can be mined for identity theft – before arrangements can be made to view the apartment. The scammer may say he is out of state for work, or for some other reason has to rush to rent the apartment from afar.

The con artist may also use the name of an actual leasing agent and agency; when renters go online, they believe they are verifying the self-proclaimed agent’s identity.

One woman in Florida who got access to a real-estate agent’s lock-box codes, apparently by pretending to be agent, printed rental contracts and business cards, which she displayed inside the home after hiding the real agent’s cards in a drawer, police said.

She also pulled the true realty sign from the yard and hid it in the garage during home tours. When one couple spotted the sign, she told them to ignore the telephone number on it, a move that made the couple suspicious and ultimately led to a police sting.

The woman would fill out a rental agreement on the spot and take a cash deposit, making arrangements to deliver the keys later and providing a telephone number, police said. She received money for several homes before she was arrested and charged, police said.

A real owner rents his foreclosed property

At times the scam artist is a desperate homeowner. Authorities say owners approaching, or in, foreclosure have been renting the property and pocketing the cash, removing eviction signs from the property to keep tenants in the dark as long as possible.

Renters may not learn their money has been taken until eviction day, although government agencies have been working to ensure that tenants get at least three months to move after a confirmed notification.

A con artist borrows a real apartment or address and collects deposits and Social Security numbers

Instead of borrowing a listing, the scammer creates his own for an occupied apartment that he has borrowed or even temporarily rented using phony identification. He advertises a low price and creates a sense of urgency to encourage people to hand over cash and an application containing Social Security numbers to hold the unit.

In the end, the victim risks losing not just cash but his identity and banking information.

A con artist rents a real, but unavailable, apartment to tourists

Anyone can list a property as a vacation or temporary rental, and it attracts those visiting or moving from out of town. But a scammer will request that a security deposit and rent money be wired in advance, as opposed to accepting a credit card or check.

Visitors show up at the address to find no apartment and no valid contact information. Authorities say it is almost impossible to recover money that has been wired, which is almost as untraceable as cash, or even to find the perpetrators.

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