An Evicted Utah Tenant Is Charged With Listing Her Landlord's Home for Rent in Retaliation

A revenge plot has turned into felony charges in Utah, and it doubles as a warning about one of the most common rental scams out there. A woman is accused of retaliating against the apartment manager who evicted her by listing the manager's own home for rent online without her consent.

Elisa Jo Nelson, 26, of South Jordan, has been charged with fraudulently advertising a real estate property, a second-degree felony, along with unlawful online impersonation and electronic communication harassment, according to a report from Realtor.com/Yahoo News. A summons has been issued for her to appear in court; she has not been taken into custody.

How the case unfolded

The charges trace back to a February 2025 complaint from a woman who found her home listed as available to rent for $950 a month, with her personal phone number attached. The result was a flood of calls from would-be renters. The South Jordan Police Department traced the listing to an IP address in Magna, Utah, linked to Nelson. The victim told investigators she recognized the name: as an apartment manager, she had recently evicted Nelson from a previous address. Search warrants for email and phone records, authorities say, confirmed the listing was created to provoke harassment.

The $950 tell

Personal vendetta aside, the fake listing followed the classic scam script, starting with a price that was too good to be true. A $950 rent in South Jordan is roughly half the going rate: the city's median rent is about $1,933, with a one-bedroom near $1,850. Even the cheaper corners of the Salt Lake area do not come close, with Salt Lake City around $1,620 and Magna about $1,734. When a whole home is advertised at half the local market, the price itself is the warning.

A common scam, personal or not

Most listing scams are about money rather than revenge, but they work the same way. Shaun Martin, CEO of Denver Real Estate Solutions in Denver, described the playbook to Realtor.com. "It starts with an online listing for a rental property that is too good to be true," he said. "The rent is significantly lower than market value, and the photos look amazing. When you contact the landlord, they will say they are out of town and unable to show the property in person. They will ask you to wire the deposit and first month's rent sight unseen. Of course, once you send the money, you will never hear from them again."

How to protect yourself

Verify who owns it. Check county property records or the listed brokerage before you engage. A quick search would have shown the Utah home was not the poster's to rent.

Never pay before a signed lease and a verified identity. Wires, Zelle, and gift cards are effectively unrecoverable, and a landlord who is conveniently out of town and cannot meet is the reddest flag there is.

Know the local market. If a listing is far below the going rent, treat the price as the scam signal, not a lucky break.

For the full checklist, read our guide on how to spot a rental scam before you lose a deposit and the listing red flags that should make you walk away. Anyone targeted should report it to local police and the Federal Trade Commission.

Sources

Reporting and charges: Yahoo News (Realtor.com), Evicted Tenant Is Charged With Listing Landlord's Home for Rent in Retaliation (2026). Scam-mechanics quotes: Shaun Martin of Denver Real Estate Solutions, via reporting on rental listing scams and the Federal Trade Commission. Rent figures: RentDataNow, June 2026, anchored to the Zillow Observed Rent Index.