Rosemead woman's home posted on fake rental scam listing, bringing strangers to her front door
A homeowner in Rosemead said strangers continue showing up at her front door after a scammer listed her home for rent on a popular travel website.
Alexis Cavish said her home was posted on a fake rental listing on Booking.com. Although the address is correct, the photos included in the post were not of her home.
'We found out our house was listed on Booking.com and we are not renting out our house on Booking.com, so we had some people come show up at our house thinking they had rented our home,' she said.
Cavish said, not only has she never rented out her home, she doesn't even have an account with Booking.com.
However, within the last 24 hours, two sets of strangers arrived at her front door, showing her an email confirmation that they had booked her home as a short-term rental through the website. She had to turn them away.
'Luckily, so far, the people [who have shown up] have been really nice,' Cavish said. 'But they're strangers coming to the house where I have kids, I have a playground and I don't like the idea of strangers coming to my house.'
Her home was listed by the scammer for nearly $400 a night. Cavish said she's stunned as to how this mix-up could even happen.
'I'm frustrated because the company is clearly not doing its due diligence,' she said. 'Why doesn't the owner have to prove some ownership before being able to charge people money to stay?'
David Lazarus, KTLA's consumer specialist, said similar rental scams are becoming increasingly popular.
'It's a common enough scam that there's a name for it — short-term rental scams — and it's most common on Airbnb and Booking.com,' Lazarus explained.
Oftentimes, many rental or vacation sites have automated listing procedures, which means no humans are actually checking or verifying the postings.
He said the safest thing to do when renting a place online is to ensure that all payments are made on the site itself and not through a third-party payment app.
'Stay on the site,' Lazarus said. 'In terms of any payment, any communication, don't leave the platform. So, if the listing says they want you to pay with Zelle or Venmo or some other digital payment plan, and especially if they ask for crypto, walk away.'
Lazarus said another way to protect yourself is, when provided with the home's address after booking, search the address on Google Maps to make sure the home matches the rental listing photos and description.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
10 minutes ago
- CBS News
California Sen. Sabrina Cervantes won't face DUI charges after crash near state Capitol
SACRAMENTO – Prosecutors will not file DUI charges against California Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, saying a toxicology report came back negative after the senator was involved in a crash near the state Capitol last week. The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office said it reviewed police reports, witness statements and the negative toxicology report before deciding not to file any charges against Cervantes, who represents areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Cervantes was involved in a crash near 14th and S streets on May 19. The Sacramento Police Department said Cervantes was taken to a hospital with minor injuries by a private party. The police department said Cervantes showed "objective signs that led them to believe she may have been impaired." Officers asked Cervantes to perform a field sobriety test, but she declined, the police department said. After becoming aware that police were seeking a warrant to obtain a blood sample, police said she voluntarily agreed to provide the sample. But the police department said they waited for the warrant to be signed by a judge. The blood sample was collected and sent to the district attorney. Cervantes was also cited, police said. "The toxicology results were negative for any measurable amount of alcohol or drugs," the Sacramento County District Attorney said. Cervantes denied any wrongdoing, saying she had no alcohol in her system. The police department said she was suspected of DUI of drugs.
Forbes
10 minutes ago
- Forbes
Are These Companies The Next MicroStrategy?
MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA - MAY 19: Michael Saylor speaks on stage during Bitcoin Conference 2023 at ... More Miami Beach Convention Center on May 19, 2023 in Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo byfor Bitcoin Magazine) Strategy – formerly MicroStrategy – bought its first bitcoin in August 2020. With the 21,454 BTC purchase (valued at $250 million at the time), the world's first bitcoin treasury strategy company was born, and now Strategy holds 580,250 BTC – 2.9% of Bitcoin's circulating supply valued at $60.8 billion. Strategy issues convertible notes – a form of debt that creditors can redeem for stock in lieu of cash repayment – and equity to fund the purchases. Since adopting its bitcoin treasury strategy, Strategy's stock is up over 2,800%, and the company's market capitalization is $101.9 billion. Strategy (formerly Microstrategy) has seen its stock price explode since adopting a bitcoin treasury ... More strategy Nearly five years after Strategy's first purchase, companies are dogpiling on the bitcoin treasury strategy play. For instance, GameStop – the video game retail giant of 2021 memestock fame – purchased 4,710 BTC worth $493.6 million this week. GameStop, which had $4.76 billion in cash at the end of 2024, first teased its bitcoin treasury strategy in March. 'If the thesis is correct, bitcoin and gold as well can be a hedge against global currency devaluation and systemic risk,' GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen said in a pre-recorded address to the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Even President Trump is (unsurprisingly) getting in on the action. The President's publicly traded media company, Trump Media, announced this week that it raised $2.44 billion via equity and convertible notes, of which it plans to allocate $2.32 billion to create a bitcoin treasury. A slew of public and private companies around the world are hoping to conjure the same magic first cast by Strategy's CEO, Michael Saylor. Bitcoin treasury strategy tracking website Bitcoin Treasuries lists 147 companies (116 public, 31 private) which hold bitcoin on their balance sheets. Collectively, these companies hold 1,094,425 BTC worth $114.6 billion. Christian Lopez, the head of blockchain and digital assets at investment bank Cohen and Company Capital Markets, believes this is just the start. 'Bitcoin exposure isn't a trend – it's becoming an asset class and we're still early in that institutional shift,' he told me. Lopez expects companies to increasingly adopt bitcoin treasury strategies in response to monetary debasement from debt-burdened governments. Individuals and companies will need assets that can outrun money printing and inflation, and bitcoin is the fastest horse in the race, he espoused. Cohen and Company advised a recent financing round for Nakamoto Holdings, a bitcoin treasury company that is mergering with healthcare company KindlyMD for a spot on public markets. Nakamoto Holdings raised $710 million – the largest raise ever for a private crypto company – with a $510 million private equity sale and $200 million in convertible notes. David Bailey, the co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin Conference organizer and Bitcoin Magazine publisher BTC Inc., founded Nakamoto and has taken helm of the company as CEO. 'Traditional finance and Bitcoin-native markets are converging. The securitization of Bitcoin will redraw the world's economic map. We believe a future is coming where every balance sheet – public or private – holds Bitcoin. Nakamoto seeks to be the first publicly traded conglomerate designed to accelerate that,' Bailey said. Nakamoto will use some of its raised capital to buy bitcoin. KindlyMD shareholders approved the merger last week, which is expected to close this year. The company purchased 21 bitcoin for $2.3 million this week, a symbolic nod to bitcoin's 21 million supply cap. Nakamoto Holdings isn't the only bitcoin treasury strategy company that BTC Inc's team has its hand in. The company was also involved in Metaplanet's pivot to a bitcoin treasury strategy. The Japanese hotel firm started buying bitcoin in April 2024 with Dylan Leclair (a partner at BTC Inc.'s investment arm, UTXO Management) leading its bitcoin strategy. Metaplanet holds 7,800 BTC worth $817 million and is up 221% year-to-date. UTXO Management also purchased HK Asia Holdings in January of this year to replicate the bitcoin treasury strategy, and it has acquired 28.88 BTC worth $3 million. Most recently, BTC Inc. and UTXO Management co-founder, Tyler Evans, joined The Smarter Web Company to facilitate its bitcoin treasury strategy. The Smarter Web Company IPOed on the Aquis exchange in the U.K. in late April and currently holds 58.71 BTC worth $6.15 million. UTXO Management's investments in bitcoin treasury companies earned it a place as the fifth best performing single manager hedge fund in 2024. So it's no surprise that the firm and its parent company want to emulate the strategy wherever possible. Evans told me in April the company's game plan is to export the bitcoin treasury playbook around the world to unlock investors who may be restricted from – or can not easily access – a U.S. company like Strategy. 'We think that there's an opportunity for a bitcoin treasury company in every tier-one financial market globally,' Evans said. 'Over the last 12 months, we went very hard into the bitcoin treasury-play thesis as as we really saw it play out with what Saylor is doing, and the opportunity to really globalize it," he continued. Lopez called the global strategy smart, saying that it opens the doors for bitcoin exposure to investors in counties that don't have spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). 'It's an intelligent capital deployment and arbitrage strategy. Institutional and retail investors in many countries lack access to clean, direct bitcoin plays. Local public companies with BTC treasuries provide a regulatory-compliant, listed alternative – especially in jurisdictions without bitcoin spot ETFs (e.g., Japan, parts of Europe, Asia, LatAm, etc.),' he told me. The list of bitcoin treasury strategy companies continues to grow. Another such company that made headlines recently, Twenty One is going public via a Cantor Fitzgerald-sponsored SPAC and includes Tether and SoftBank as investors. Twenty One says that it holds 31,500 BTC worth $3.3 billion in anticipation of its launch. Strive Asset Management, a bitcoin treasury strategy company founded by former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy which is merging with Asset Entities, is raising $750 million in a private equity placement to buy bitcoin. The raise includes an option to raise an additional $750 million with warrants for a total consideration of $1.5 billion. Most of the companies I've covered here have teams that come from other Bitcoin companies, but the fever isn't contained to Bitcoin-first firms. Med-tech company Semler Scientific, mining company Critical Metals, and many other companies outside of the Bitcoin industry are adopting bitcoin treasury strategies. As companies continue to crowd into bitcoin, Lopez believes that there is still opportunity to capitalize on the bitcoin treasury strategy trade. That said, Lopez also believes that a bitcoin strategy alone won't be enough for most of these entrants. He thinks that there will only be a handful of winners who adopt a bitcoin treasury strategy without a strong underlying business. And we'll see a real shift in the bitcoin treasury landscape once companies with strong businesses – the Magnificent Sevens of the world and their ilk – start accumulating bitcoin for their balance sheets, he said.
E&E News
11 minutes ago
- E&E News
Top lawyer in climate litigation elected to Harvard board
An attorney who has represented Exxon Mobil in its fight against lawsuits that seek to hold the oil and gas industry liable for climate change has been selected as a member of the powerful body that oversees Harvard University. Kannon Shanmugam, who leads the Supreme Court practice at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, will join the Harvard Corp. as its newest member on July 1. Shanmugam has represented Exxon in its push to quash the raft of lawsuits for nearly a decade, arguing before the Colorado Supreme Court in February that a lawsuit filed by the city of Boulder should be rejected. Advertisement Shanmugam's election to the Harvard board comes as the school is under attack by the Trump administration, which has moved to cancel the school's federal funding and prevent it from enrolling foreign students.
