San Francisco Supervisors Hold First Meeting to Prevent Rental Market Scams
After a high-profile rental scam in San Francisco went viral this August amid booming housing costs, the city held its first-ever public hearing on how to prevent another one.
The board’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee hosted the hearing on rental scams on Thursday, and outlined some of the common tactics scammers use and what’s currently being done about it.
Supervisor Danny Sauter, who convened the hearing, said the housing market in the city makes it a ripe target for scammers.
“These stories are scary for the public. They’re devastating for the victims, and they’re complex for law enforcement to begin to untangle,” Sauter said. “These kinds of sophisticated rental scams are unique and quickly evolving.”
Rents in the city jumped more than 25% in the last year, which some experts attribute in part to the artificial intelligence industry. Between 2020 and 2025, the Federal Trade Commission said, consumers reported nearly 65,000 renter scams that totaled around $65 million in losses.
“The reality is that the quicker we adjust our communications, so too will the scammers figure that out and undermine it,” said Amanda Fried, chief assistant treasurer in the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector. “Part of what I think the strategy on scams is actually moving backwards a little bit in technology.”
The FTC found that many reported scams originate on social media, and that “about half of people who reported a rental scam in the 12 months ending June 2025 said the scam originated with a fake ad on Facebook.”
Most of those who reported to the FTC are between the ages of 18 and 29 — an age range that is three times more likely to lose money from a scam, the FTC said.
Alvin Tran, who was the unfortunate target of an over-$18,000 rental scam in July, previously told KQED that he first noticed the scam on Craigslist. The scammer directed him to a real open house, but the rental listing had not been listed on the site.
“It was all so elaborate and sophisticated that I just couldn’t believe that it was a scam,” Tran told KQED then.
In July, San Francisco launched what it called the country’s first city-led strategy “to protect residents from scams before they happen.”
StopScams SF issues alerts in multiple languages to bring attention to current scams, monitors social media and other channels for potential scams and offers free counseling for victims.
One thing Fried said the city wants to lean on is the trust that residents have in its government. She said they want to build out 311’s ability to answer a question in real time.
“They’re able to speak to somebody and get clear information; they know that they can trust that. That’s a really powerful tool,” Fried said. “That doesn’t exist yet.”
Fried said that scammers bank on people not taking the time to slow down and ask questions, but that doing so can be difficult in the current rental market.
Scammers can impersonate real landlords or property companies, use AI-generated photos, videos and voices and repost listings on other sites.
“These are really highly sophisticated. The scammers are working quickly,” Fried said. “AI makes this very, very easy.”
You can learn more about what to do if you’ve been scammed on the StopScams SF website.
KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed to this report.