Craigslist has hundreds of listings for home and apartment rentals.  The problem is the owners of the property may not have posted some of the listings.

  Tracie Heckenlively found an ad for a nice three-bedroom home for rent in southwest Springfield for just $500, including utilities.

  “I was looking at rental ads online and I went to craigslist,” said Heckenlively.

  The problem is the person who listed the house doesn't own it.  Betty Ingle does.

  “I never heard of craigslist before,” said Ingle.

  Ingle had the home listed on Kijiji, a free local classifieds site, for $775 per month.

  “They took the pictures and posted it for $500,” said Ingle.

  The craigslist scammers included an e-mail address.  When Heckenlively responded to it, the con artists told her they were out of the country on business but she could still go take a look at the outside of the house and let them know if she's interested.

  “They e-mailed me this morning and asked me to Western Union $500 for the deposit,” she said.

  Luckily, Heckenlively thought to Google the property, where she ended up finding the real ad on Kijiji and contact number for Ingle, the actual owner.

  “It's very frustrating because we may have had the house rented by now,” said Ingle.

   As for Heckenlively, she's just glad she didn't fall victim and now knows, when it comes to renting property, local is the only way to go.

  “Rent from people who are local -- local phone number, local contact,” she said.

  Ingle sent an e-mail message to craigslist and asked it to remove the ad but nobody responded.  However, the ad was gone on Wednesday.

  Craigslist does provide some helpful advice on protecting yourself from fraud and scams.

   You likely can expect more of this type of scam.  As long as they continue to get victims, con artists will continue to post ads.  In fact, Betty's ad was the second one we've heard of just this week in which scammers duplicated a legitimate listing and posted it on craigslist with their contact information.