Rental Scams in Arlington

Where to Report Rental Fraud in Arlington

If you have sent money to a fraudulent Arlington listing, report it to the Arlington Police Department through its non-emergency line rather than 911, and preserve every text, email, listing screenshot, and any lease or payment record before you do. Arlington sits in Tarrant County, so an in-person or online police report creates the paper trail you will need for a bank chargeback or wire recall.

File a parallel complaint with the Texas Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, which handles fraud, scams, and deceptive business practices statewide. You can file free through the Attorney General's online consumer complaint form or by phone at the Consumer Protection Hotline, 1-800-621-0508 (Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Central). Include copies, not originals, of your receipts, messages, and any contract. Individual complaints do not guarantee a personal refund, but they help the office identify fraud patterns that support enforcement action.

For scams that crossed state lines by wire, email, or a national listing site, also file with the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov (or 1-877-FTC-HELP), and report the listing to the platform where you found it so it can be pulled down before it snares someone else.

Verify the Landlord and Property Through Tarrant County Records

Arlington property ownership is public record through the Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD). Search the address at tad.org to see the legal owner of record, and compare that name to whoever is signing your lease or collecting your deposit. A common scam signature is a name that does not match the appraisal record, or a person who cannot explain the gap between the two.

If the listing is priced far below Arlington norms, treat that as a red flag and cross-check the numbers against current local listings on major rental sites, since a smaller unit advertised at a price well under comparable homes is a classic bait pattern. A rental that is far cheaper than similar nearby units, paired with an owner who insists on payment before any in-person showing, should make you slow down. Never wire funds, send gift cards, or pay by app before you have physically toured the unit and confirmed the person handing over keys is tied to the recorded owner or a licensed agent.

Texas Deposit and Application-Fee Rules Worth Knowing

Texas does not cap the dollar amount of a security deposit, but it does control the timeline. Under Texas Property Code Section 92.103, a landlord must refund your deposit within 30 days of you surrendering the unit, and Section 92.109 makes a landlord who wrongfully withholds it in bad faith liable for $100 plus three times the portion of the deposit wrongfully withheld, plus your reasonable attorney's fees. Always give the landlord a written forwarding address, since that triggers the refund obligation.

Know the difference between the two upfront charges. Under Section 92.351, an application fee is nonrefundable and offsets screening costs, while an application deposit is refundable if you are rejected as a tenant. Texas law also gives you the right to review the landlord's written tenant selection criteria before you pay; if the landlord fails to make that notice available and then rejects you, they must return both the application fee and the deposit. A supposed landlord who refuses to put any criteria in writing and pushes hard for immediate payment is behaving unlike a legitimate Arlington property manager.