Conroe woman on brink of homelessness after renting home from fake landlord in rental scam

CONROE, Texas (KTRK) -- A Conroe woman learned she rented a home from someone who posed as the landlord, and now she has to be out of the house by Sunday.

Patricia Reiling said she found the listing for the home in the Cielo neighborhood on Craigslist. The person who posted the home rental said his name was Martin Bailey. Reiling said Bailey communicated with her through text and phone calls, but she did not meet him in person. He had her fill out an intake form on the Invitation Homes website. She said she assumed he worked for them.

She and her boyfriend visited the neighborhood to look at the home before signing a lease. Bailey gave her the code to get inside the house.

"Everything looked legit, and the next morning at 8 in the morning, he sent me the code," Reiling explained.

He told her the rent was $1,100, and he also needed a $1,100 deposit. She said she sent him $100 that night and scraped the rest of the money together. She and her boyfriend borrowed some of the money from a friend.

They moved in on Saturday, February 8, and have already unpacked.

"We've had such a wonderful feeling in this home," Reiling said.

Reiling got a call from Invitation Homes in response to her intake form the following Monday. During that call, she was informed that Bailey was not associated with Invitation Homes and he did not own the home. The home is one of the company's rentals.

"She says, 'I think you were scammed,' and I'm like, 'What?'" Reiling said. "Then she went through a long spew of why she believed I was scammed and that there shouldn't be anybody in this house, and I'm like, 'What do I do?'"

Thursday, she was served a certified letter telling her the home had to be vacated by Sunday.

Reiling attempted to apply through Invitation Homes to live in the home, but she and her boyfriend are having trouble with their ID cards and have not been able to move forward with the applications.

She said she had been on the phone all week, calling different agencies for help. She contacted her bank, but they said they could not refund her money.

"We're going to load everything up and put it in a storage unit, and I don't know where we'll live," Reiling said.

ABC13 reached out to Bailey through the number he spoke to Reiling on. Reporter Mycah Hatfield identified herself and explained that he did not own the home and that Reiling was getting kicked out. When asked if he had to say anything, he hung up and appeared to block her number.

Another Craigslist listing is posted for a rental property in Montgomery County under Martin Bailey, with the same phone number. The house is also listed for rent on Invitation Homes' website.

ABC13 told Invitation Homes about Reilings' situation and the other listing on Craigslist.

A spokesperson said, "We are always frustrated to discover that one of our homes has been used for these types of scams, which can have a devastating effect on the victims. Our goal, as always, is to offer quality homes and ensure our residents have great experiences. We take multiple precautions to try to keep criminals from using our home for scams."

The spokesperson said that while they list homes on Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, and other websites, they do not list their homes on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.

Reiling now has a U-Haul backed up to her home, ready to pack up again. She plans to put her stuff in storage but does not know where she and her boyfriend will live.

"There's so many people out there trying their best to survive in this world and there's people that take advantage of them," Reiling said.

She filed a report with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. They did not respond to ABC13's request for comment on the investigation.

For more on this story, follow Mycah Hatfield on Facebook, X and Instagram.