Woman says she lost $10K+ to Hilton Head Island short-term rental scam
A woman searching for a place to stay on Hilton Head Island told police she lost over $10,000 to a likely fake short-term rental listing.
The woman said she was messaged by the supposed rental owner on Facebook after making a post seeking recommendations for a three-month stay. Along with photos, the profile sent her a Vrbo condo listing that was a short walk from the beach in Palmetto Dunes, the woman was documented telling police April 30 in a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
The woman was given a quote of $10,800 but “became suspicious” after the Facebook profile asked her to send a $4,300 cashier’s check to the suspected scammer’s daughter in Louisiana, the report says. Still, she sent the check as instructed, she told police.
The suspected scammer then claimed her husband was injured in a car wreck, asking for the remaining $6,500 to be sent via Venmo to a different person in New York, according to the police report. The woman sent another cashier’s check after her attempts at a wire transfer were flagged for “potential fraud,” she told deputies.
After sending $10,800 in total, the woman noticed the suspected scammer’s Facebook profile had been deleted, “confirming (her) suspicions that it was in fact a scam,” the report says. She told police she had no other way of reaching the supposed property owner.
A deputy noted he found no current record of the Vrbo listing and that attempting to access the suspected scammer’s Facebook profile yielded a message reading, “Content no longer available.”
The woman told deputies she was “sure” her money would be returned by her bank, according to the report, but she wanted the incident documented “in hopes of preventing others from falling for the same scam.”
How to spot rental scams
Targeting prospective renters appears to be a common scam tactic in the Hilton Head Island area, according to a review of sheriff’s office incident reports.
Those past incidents often began with the suspected scammers reaching out through Facebook and requesting payments through platforms like PayPal, Venmo or Zelle. Victims reported being misled by fake listings for both vacation rentals and local apartments, the reports say.
The Federal Trade Commission says signs of a rental scam include listings with unusually low prices, a fabricated sense of urgency to “get a great deal” and requests to pay for bookings via gift cards, cryptocurrency or unsecured wire transfers.
This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 2:03 PM.
