AI Rental Listing Scam Checker — Cited Risk Report

Paste a rental listing and get back a scam-risk assessment: matched red-flag patterns, a price-for-area reality check, a confidence rating, and the real source URLs behind every claim — live Google Search grounding, not a guess from stale training data.

Tutorial: how to run it

1. Click Try for free (or Start) on this page.
2. Paste the listing text into listingDescription — or leave the prefilled example to see it work immediately.
3. Optionally add address, landlordName, or monthlyRent for a sharper price-for-area check.
4. Click Start and open the Output tab once the run finishes.
5. Read verdict, confidence, and redFlags for the headline result, and priceAssessment for the market-rate reality check.

Common questions, answered directly

How do I check if a rental listing is a scam?

Paste the listing text and get back a verdict, matched red flags, and a price-for-area reality check grounded in a live search — not a guess.

What are red flags of a fake apartment or rental listing?

Landlord claiming to be overseas, wire-transfer-before-viewing requests, and rent priced well below comparable listings in the area are the patterns this Actor screens for automatically.

Is there an API to screen rental listings for fraud before they go live?

Yes — this is built to sit behind a classifieds site or property platform as an automated pre-publish screening layer.

What you can use this for

• Renters — sanity-check a listing before wiring a deposit or handing over personal info.
• Property platforms / classifieds sites — an automated screening layer flagging suspicious listings before they go live.
• Consumer-protection tools / browser extensions — a backend for a "check this listing" feature.

Input

Field	Description	Default
listingDescription	The listing's text	a classic scam-pattern example
address	Property address (optional)	—
landlordName	Landlord/agent name (optional)	—
monthlyRent	Rent, if not already in the description (optional)	—
platform	Where it's listed, e.g. Craigslist (optional)	—
model	Gemini model	gemini-3.8-flash
apiKey	Your own Gemini API key (optional)	—

Every field has a working default — hit Start with no changes and you'll get a result.

Output

{
  "listingSummary": "...",
  "location": "Austin, TX",
  "monthlyRent": "$650/month",
  "verdict": "likely_scam",
  "confidence": "high",
  "redFlags": ["Landlord claims to be overseas and unavailable", "Requests wire transfer before any viewing", "..."],
  "positiveSignals": [],
  "priceAssessment": "Significantly below comparable 2-bedroom listings in downtown Austin, a common scam indicator.",
  "sources": [{ "url": "https://...", "title": "..." }],
  "searchQueries": ["..."],
  "groundingUsed": true,
  "model": "gemini-3.8-flash",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-09-04T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.12 per listing checked. No subscription, no minimum.

Actor recommendations

• 🐾 Pet Adoption Scam Checker — same cited-verification approach, applied to pet and puppy listings.
• 💔 Romance Scam Checker — for checking an online relationship instead of a listing.
• 🏢 Company & Person Verification API — for verifying a landlord or property-management company itself.