MELBOURNE, Fla. – With affordable housing increasingly out of reach, tiny homes have surged in popularity – and so has tiny house fraud. A News 6 investigation found scammers are stealing images from a local manufacturer and using them to swindle prospective homebuyers out of thousands of dollars.
At Movable Roots in Melbourne, workers have been building custom modular homes for a decade. Now, crooks are trying to cash in on that success.
“They’re taking advantage of people not doing their due diligence,” said Mike Cheatham of Movable Roots.
Fake listings, real losses
Dozens of ads for tiny homes appear on Facebook Marketplace, and Cheatham says photos of Movable Roots’ custom builds are showing up there – and on fake websites – at rock-bottom prices.,
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Identity theft is the “foundational” fraud upon which many other crimes are built. It involves the unauthorized acquisition and use of a person’s personal identifying information (PII), such as an ID number, Social Security number, or passport details.
- How it works: Fraudsters obtain PII through data breaches, mail theft, or “social engineering” (tricking people into revealing details). Once they have this data, they can open new bank accounts, apply for credit cards or loans, and even receive medical treatment under your name.
- Synthetic Identity Fraud: A sophisticated variation where criminals combine real and fabricated information to create a completely new, “synthetic” person. This is particularly difficult to detect because there is no single victim to report the suspicious activity initially.