My biggest concern is the amount of people that just flat out don't know and have not been taught how to check and see if a place is actually for rent or if it's a scam. Unfortunately, many people don't do the proper background checks and use digital wallet/payment systems which makes it even harder to trace and ever get your money back. This is not going to slow down and has only been accelerating with cryptocurrencies. If you don't understand how these platform work, highly suggest you read up on it and fully understand them.
From a home owners perspective, I am one of those that does check to see if any of my properties are "for rent" and not by me. This scam is well known and has been going on for years all around the world. Check the usual sites (VRBO, AirBNB, Homeaway etc.), but almost impossible to check Craigslist unfortunately. Takes 2 mins and suggest checking via the "map" and zooming in vs your address. Many won't give you the ability to list your address anyways to protect the properties, but do generally give 'general areas' of their location on the lake for example (Paugus Bay, vs Alton Bay, vs Wolfeboro Bay). Literally takes you 2 mins to do.
As a side note - other things to be VERY careful of with Airbnb, VRBO and others (especially when staying alone or with your significant other), are other people's/previous occupants ability to access your place while you're there or not. Safety is and can be of great concern and most people dont' think through when booking a nice weekend away.... Obviously the 'big companies' want to keep is hush hush to save face, but it's starting to trickle out there to the public with incidents being on the rise with articles like this...
Article calling it out:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...entals-go-away
(Not trying to scare anyone, just want to make you aware there are deranged predators out there and to be careful when booking your time away).