TikTok rental scam exposed, Milwaukee homes targeted
TikTok rental scam exposed, Milwaukee homes targeted
A Contact 6 investigation found that several Milwaukee houses advertised for rent on a TikTok page were fraudulent listings.
MILWAUKEE - Is it the perfect rental or a fake listing? It can be hard to tell the difference. One TikTok page with thousands of views listed several Milwaukee properties that were not available for rent, but Contact 6 got it shut down.
The backstory:
For three months, Richard Hickles renovated a Milwaukee house before listing it for sale in June. Not everyone who contacted Hickles about the house wanted to buy it. The problem was a TikTok video saying the house was available for rent – it was not posted by Hickles.
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"Somebody (was) saying that the property was for rent for like $1,100," Hickles said.
That price is too good to be true for a four-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom house in Milwaukee. Hickles said the property is "100% for sale" and definitely not for rent.
Richard Hickles
Milwaukee homes listed on TikTok
Dig deeper:
Contact 6 studied the TikTok page and found more than 50 videos of houses all across Milwaukee, supposedly available for rent. Contact 6 and Hickles separately texted the phone number on the listings about his property and received similar responses from someone claiming to be the landlord and owner.
The person said Contact 6 and Hickles could tour the property, but first they had to fill out an application form. The form asked for a "refundable" $52 fee, sent by a peer-to-peer payment app of choice. Scam payments sent through apps like Zelle, Chime, and PayPal are almost impossible to get back.
Hickles flagged the video.
"TikTok didn’t even take the videos down. I was like 'wow,'" Hickles said.
Scam posts Milwaukee homes for rent on TikTok
Rental scams
Big picture view:
Between 2020 and 2025, the Federal Trade Commission got nearly 65,000 reports of rental scams, amounting to $65 million in losses. Scammers demanded money up front before renters could see places in person.
The Better Business Bureau did its own study. Lisa Schiller of the BBB Serving Wisconsin said 43% of consumers have "admitted to finding a rental online and it turning out to be false."
Not for sale
Local perspective:
Contact 6 visited 13 houses from the TikTok page listed for rent. Half of the properties had a "for sale" sign in the front yard. At one house, the owners told Contact 6 they'd lived there for years. They said their house was not for sale or rent, and the video shown on TikTok was not taken inside their property.
Contact 6 asked Lamar Walton, who owns another Milwaukee house listed on the page, if the house was available for rent. He said "no," and when asked how it came about, he said: "I have no clue. It’s for sale, I actually have an offer."
Contact 6 heard back from homeowners or real estate agents for nearly all the properties visited. They confirmed their houses were not for rent.
Lamar Walton
Real video, fake post
Dig deeper:
The video shown on the TikTok page of Hickles' property was taken inside his house, so Contact 6 tracked down the person who shot it to learn how scammers were able to get it.
"I shot this video maybe about three weeks ago," Porsha Bates said.
Bates is a realtor who posts marketing videos of home tours on social media. Her postings include a video of Hickles' house that she said was snatched from her TikTok page by a scammer.
"That’s 100% my video," Bates said. "The scammers are taking real estate agents or realtors' videos and turning them into their own videos and then posting them for rent."
TikTok page shut down
What they're saying:
A TikTok spokesperson said their guidelines prohibit scam attempts. They remove the videos proactively, provide guidance on identifying scams, and make it easy to report suspicious content.
Scam posts Milwaukee homes for rent on TikTok
The other side:
Contact 6 and Hickles called the scammer together to ask why his property was on the TikTok page. The man insisted Hickles' house was for rent, sometimes speaking in another language, then hung up.
Contact 6 contacted TikTok, and in less than a day, the platform took down the page. Hickles is not aware of any victims who filled out the form and paid money, and he hopes it stays that way.
"You don't want to be taken advantage of via identity theft. Plus, you don’t want to lose the money that you’re putting for a rental application," Hickles said.
How to avoid scams
What you can do:
If looking for a rental, the FTC advises against sharing personal information early in the process. It recommends researching rents nearby and being skeptical of anything that is much cheaper. Always search the rental address on Google; if the same property is listed for sale or with different contact information, it's probably a scam.
The FTC said people ages 18 to 29 are three times more likely than other adults to report losing money to a rental scam.
Portions of this article were formatted using A.I. FOX6’s Jenna Sachs and an editor reviewed it for accuracy and tone prior to publishing.
The Source: Information in this story was gathered from Richard Hickles, Contact 6 reporting, Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau, Lisa Schiller of BBB, Lamar Walton, Porshe Bates and a TikTok spokesperson.