Most hunting lease scams work the same way. Someone advertises land they don't own or control, takes a deposit through a payment app, and disappears before the season opens. The ad looks real because the photos are real, just taken from somewhere else. The price looks good because there's no actual lease behind it. And by the time the hunter drives out to scout, the "landowner" has stopped answering.
These cases keep turning up in the news, in different states and different years. Below are several that were reported, the pattern they share, the red flags hunters commonly talk about, and how booking a private lease through us works instead.
Want ground for this season without sending a deposit to a stranger? Browse private hunting leases and book by card, or call us at (804) 424-5233 (9am to 10pm Eastern, seven days a week).
Reported hunting lease scams
A Georgia inmate charged with scamming Florida hunters (2026)
In August 2026 the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced charges against Rodney Edward Smith, a man held at Macon State Prison in Georgia. FWC says he used smuggled cell phones, fake social media profiles, several aliases and dozens of phone numbers to advertise hunting land he did not own or control. He is accused of negotiating lease terms and collecting deposits from hunters across 15 Florida counties between July 2025 and April 2026, without ever providing access.
The charges were filed in Gilchrist County, and he was extradited to Florida on August 16 with bond set at $700,000, as FWC and CBS Miami reported that month. These are charges, not a conviction.
An Ohio man convicted of selling leases on land he had no right to (2019 to 2022)
This one ran its full course. According to the U.S. Department of Justice and Farm and Dairy (October 2022), an Ohio man posted ads in dozens of Facebook hunting groups offering leases on Ohio property he had no authority to lease. He charged between $400 and $5,000 a lease, used photos of mature bucks to sell it, and took payment through PayPal, Venmo, Western Union and similar services. Every victim lived outside Ohio.
It came apart when two Florida hunters drove up to scout and met the real landowner. They went to the sheriff and arranged to "pay the second half" of their fee, and he was arrested at that meeting in 2019. He was convicted of wire fraud and in 2022 was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison, three years of supervised release and restitution. Prosecutors also pointed to a second danger: hunters who believe they hold a lease end up on land whose owner has never heard of them.
A Wisconsin man charged with selling hunting rights under a false name (2013)
Grand View Outdoors reported in November 2013 that a 25-year-old man near Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was charged with two misdemeanor theft counts after allegedly selling hunting rights on land he did not own, using an alias. Four hunters reportedly paid him a combined $2,000. The owner found out when a neighbor ran hunters off the property and another hunter said he had leased it.
A Craigslist "lease" on 10,000 acres of someone else's land (2014)
In September 2014, Bay News 9 reported a Craigslist ad offering a lease on 10,000 acres of a private hunting camp in Volusia County, Florida. The real owner said the poster was taking $500 to $1,000 from hunters and inviting off-road clubs onto the property. The sheriff's office was investigating it as possible fraud; no arrest was reported.
The pattern they share
Different states, different years, nearly the same playbook:
- The ad lives on social media or a classifieds site. Facebook groups, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist come up again and again, because anyone can post and nobody checks.
- The photos are borrowed. Trail-cam bucks, food plots and stand shots pulled from other listings, other groups or the internet at large.
- The poster doesn't own or control the land. Sometimes the property is real and belongs to someone else; sometimes it's a parcel picked off a map.
- Payment goes through an app or a wire. Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, PayPal, Western Union. Fast, hard to reverse, and no business behind it.
- There's urgency. "Other hunters are interested", "a deposit holds it", "season's coming".
- No meeting, no walk-through, no real paperwork. The seller is always out of town, or the gate code comes "after payment".
- The price is a little too good for the acreage and the deer in the photos.
Classified and social-media leases have nobody standing between the hunter and the poster. There's no checkout, no agreement anyone else will ever read, and no phone number that still works in October. That's the gap scammers live in.
Skip the gamble. See leases you can book today, or become a member and get the exact location and rules in your account the moment you book.
Red flags hunters commonly look for
This isn't legal advice. It's what experienced hunters tell each other they look at before money changes hands.
- Whose name is on the land. Many hunters look up the parcel on the county tax assessor or GIS site, or in a mapping app like onX, and compare the owner of record with the person they're talking to.
- Whether the seller will meet on the property. A seller who can never meet, never show the gate and never walk the boundary comes up in case after case.
- How they want to be paid. Requests for a payment app, gift cards or a wire to a personal account appear in nearly every reported case.
- Whether there's a written agreement naming the parties, the property, the dates and the rules.
- Reverse image searches on the trail-cam and property photos, which sometimes turn up the same pictures in an older post somewhere else.
- Pressure and price. A deadline that keeps moving up, or a price well below what nearby leases go for.
Every case above shows several of these at once.
How booking through HuntingLeaseUSA works instead
We built our marketplace around the gaps these scams use.
- We talk to every landowner by phone before a property is listed. Listings come from conversations with the people leasing their land, not from anonymous posts.
- You pay by card through our checkout. Not Venmo, Zelle or Cash App to a stranger's phone number.
- Every hunter signs an access agreement and liability waiver carrying the landowner's own rules before access begins.
- Leases arranged through us are insured.
- One party holds a seasonal lease. You're not sharing the ground with whoever else answered the same ad.
- The exact location, access details and rules are released in your member account after you book, so you know where you're going and what's expected.
- Real people answer the phone. Call (804) 424-5233, 9am to 10pm Eastern, seven days a week, and ask us about a property before you book.
Burned by a social-media lease before, or just not willing to find out the hard way? Browse our listings or see what's available in your state, such as Georgia, Florida or Ohio.
Ready to hunt land that's actually there? Find a lease now or call (804) 424-5233 and we'll walk you through it.
