Eric Thune and his wife Katalin, who recently retired to Santa Barbara, put their Northern California home on the market. About a week later, something odd happened.
“I got a text from my pool guy saying, ‘Do you know there’s people at your pool?’” he said.
Thune’s home security camera spotted a family heading to his backyard pool where they soaked up the sun.
“My mind was spinning. It was quite crazy to hear that. It’s a violation right? It’s your property. You don’t expect to hear people you don’t know are there,” he said.
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Thune’s pool guy put the family on the phone. They told Thune they’d rented his pool through Swimply, a site where you can rent private backyards by the hour.
“He said, ‘Your pool is listed there.’ And I said, ‘No it’s not. You’re trespassing. You need to leave, or I'll call the police,’” said Thune.
But sure enough, Thune’s pool was listed on Swimply. But, he didn’t do it. Apparently a crook posted Thune’s pool, snatching pictures of it from real estate sites to pocket the $46 an hour rental fee.
“I’m shocked," said Thune. "How could somebody post a listing without verifying that they actually owned the property?”
Good question. We asked Swimply that, too.
The answer: the company does not confirm the person listing the property owns it.
Swimply did say that once a listing is posted, it’s not immediately searchable on its site. First, the company uses fraud detection to catch bogus listings, which are removed within 24 to 48 hours.
But that didn’t happen for Thune. Swimply didn’t remove his fake listing until he reached out to NBC.
“They can talk ‘til the cows come home that they protect you, but I don’t believe it,” said Thune.
The I-Team was curious about Swimply’s fraud detection, so we teamed up with our sister station in the Bay Area. Our producer listed a backyard pool for rent, but the property is owned by an NBC executive in the Bay Area.
In turn, a Bay Area intern posted our producer’s Los Angeles rooftop patio for rent. She grabbed the image from the real estate site Zillow.
Both properties were listed and immediately searchable on Swimply’s site. The listings were there for weeks.
“I think that’s appalling, to be honest, that they can take listings for properties or pools that they’ve never confirmed that someone owns that property,” said Thune.
We asked Swimply what happened. It said the company’s “extreme growth resulted in some instances of fraud slipping through [its] cracks.” It insisted fake listings are “extremely uncommon,” and it's “committed to catching fraudsters.” To help do that, it said it’s added additional safeguards, like adding a button so users can easily flag suspicious activity.
But even after this response from Swimply, our fake listings were still on its site, until we finally took them down.
Thune says it’s a warning for all homeowners.
“I just want people to know, especially if you’ve got your home for sale, you need to watch out for this. A lot of times properties are vacant for a long time,” he said.
