I rent out a property and I also manage the property next door for a friend/old neighbour who lives at the other end of the country - I'm not a letting agent, I just do it as a favour as I manage my own too.
I showed potential tenants around my friend's house a few months ago and after reporting back she initially chose a guy who could move in quickly and had references. However the character reference he sent me was from his probation officer - when I googled, he'd recently come out of prison for attacking and stalking his ex girlfriend. At this point, no contract had been signed and no money exchanged hands so my friend decided she didn't want a violent man in her house in case he damaged it. By coincidence, an inspection found that there were serious plumbing issues, so I said to the potential tenant that the landlord couldn't offer him the lease at the moment due to repairs (not great not telling the whole truth I know but I didn't feel safe/right telling him it's also because he's violent) and the property was no longer available but if anything changed I'd be in touch.
He messaged a few times since and I just said the property isn't available and repair work was ongoing.
Repairs were finished a month ago and my friend rented it out to her niece, I wasn't involved in finding anyone.
Today he walked past the house and saw someone was obviously living there. He rang me and I was caught off guard and said sorry to let him down but that was the landlord's decision. It's all kicked off since.
Anyway tonight I've spent my evening asking local Facebook pages and groups to remove the picture of me with "scam landlord" warning. They obviously don't understand that I'm NOT the landlord!! Two men have also been down to the properties knocking on doors to find out who has lived there and for how long. This has freaked my tenant out - she suffers from severe anxiety and is now panicking. My friend's niece wasn't it, but according to my tenant they tried her back door which was thankfully locked. I've also had threats on my phone from the potential tenant's family members. My friend said at this point to pass on her number and explain she's the landlord, which I've done but they haven't contacted her.
I don't know if either of the men who went down to the houses were the potential tenant, and the Facebook posts didn't appear to be from him. But this has really pissed me off on several levels - I've been publicly accused of 'scamming money out of them' even though none exchanged hands and it's not even my property - I'm a teacher and this could have serious repercussions if anyone at work saw it. Luckily the posts were swiftly removed.
Even though it appears to be a smear campaign from slightly batshit members of this bloke's family rather than him, WIBU to get in touch with his probation officer to let them know what's going on? I just want it to stop.