A Los Gatos woman attempting to rent her house says she was shocked to learn her online advertisements were stolen by an apparent scam artist trying to secure deposits from unwitting renters.

Valerie Swisher, who lives in a backyard cottage on a quiet, tree-lined street near downtown Los Gatos, wanted to rent out a single-family home on the property.

She advertised her rental on Zillow, Craigslist and Nextdoor, and included photos of the home.

Then on Wednesday, a young couple in their 20s unexpectedly showed up hoping to rent Swisher’s cottage — not the house — for $700 a month.

“The couple walked to the back and I heard them saying how beautiful it was,” Swisher said. “I had to tell them the cottage wasn’t for rent.”

That’s when Swisher learned someone else was claiming to own her property.

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A little while after the couple left, the man “looked up my house on Zillow and emailed ‘I think I’m being scammed,’ ” Swisher said. “He also forwarded a Craigslist ad for my cottage and the email exchange he had with the scammer.”

Swisher said the ad for the cottage included a photo that “didn’t look anything like my cottage” and added, “I’m sure the scammer got it from casing Zillow.”

After receiving the scammer’s contact information, Swisher started her own investigation.

“I texted the scammer and told him I was interested in renting the cottage,” Swisher said. “I asked him to meet me and he said he couldn’t because he just moved to Ohio. His phone exchange is also from Ohio.”

The scammer said if she was interested in the cottage Swisher could wire him a deposit via PayPal, Western Union or Cash App.

Since Swisher knew a scam was afoot she didn’t send any money and instead “had a lovely conversation with the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department.”

“The police said this was the third report they’d taken in two weeks,” she said.

The police officer who took Swisher’s report was not available for comment, but Captain Clint Tada said in an email that these types of scams and false advertisements are not new.

“Many of these scams and false ads are popular with real estate and car ads since they often are tied to larger amounts of monies for rent or car sales,” Tada said. “They usually have links to PayPal or Money Gram, or encourage prospective buyers to respond by email.”

Tada cautioned that scammers — even if they don’t ask for money — often want people’s emails so they can sell their addresses to third parties.

Craigslist has an “avoid scams and fraud” page that advises people to only deal with locals and “do not extend money to anyone you have not met in person.”

It goes on to say, “Never wire funds — anyone who asks you to is a scammer.”

The FBI’s White Collar Crime Division has “seen a couple” of these scams, but Bay Area spokesman Prentice Danner said, “They usually don’t meet the financial levels needed for a federal investigation, so they’re investigated locally.”

Even so, he cautioned renters to do their homework, especially if a deal sounds too good to be true.

“A $700 rental in the Bay Area would qualify as too good to be true,” Danner said.

As for Swisher, she’s hoping Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police investigators can track down the scam artist and wonders, “How do these people live with themselves?”