Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) has just issued an alert about two websites phishing for personal and financial information from people interested in signing up for the Section 8 Waitlist Lottery. See notification from SHA below:
Notification of Section 8 Scam Sites
We were alerted early this morning about two websites that are phishing for personal and financial information from people who are interested in signing up for our Section 8 Waitlist Lottery. We wanted to let you know what to look out for on your clients' behalf and what steps we are taking to stop these sites from targeting low-income individuals in our community.
Two sites — housing-voucher.com and housingvoucher.org — have purchased Google ad keywords in order to display their sites directly above ours in search results. These are the two sites we know of, but there may be others. The sites claim to be a proxy for regional housing authorities and indicate that people can apply for Section 8 housing through their website. They then take financial advantage by convincing households that they need to pay for a credit report through their site in order to apply for housing assistance. They also offer high-interest loans for those in desperate financial situations.
In this screenshot, you can see how easy it would be to believe the first link is a legitimate way to apply for Section 8 vouchers:
How people find the scam websites:
We have already taken action to start getting these sites removed. The sites have been reported to Google and we are in the process of reporting this to the appropriate federal agencies to get the sites taken down for good.
Despite the attempts of these corrupt sites, we have had a very successful first two days of registration with over 9,500 households already registered.
If you have any questions about this or information you would like to provide to help us stop these scams, please contact Nancie White at NWhite@seattlehousing.org, her office phone at (206) 239-1523 or her mobile number at (206) 399-1642.
The correct website to register for the Seattle Housing Authority Section 8 Waitlist is seattlehousing.org/waitlist.
Here is some more information about registering for the Seattle Section 8 Lottery:
• Section 8 vouchers allow participating tenants to choose and rent units from private landlords. The Housing Authority pays a fixed amount of the rent to the owner each month, and the tenant pays the difference between this subsidy and the total rent, in addition to any utilities not included in the rent. In general, tenants pay between 30 and 40 percent of their monthly income for rent & utilities.
• Registration opened on Monday February 4th and will remain open (for two and half more weeks) until Friday February 22nd at 5 p.m. and a lottery will be held to determine who is placed on this new waitlist.
• The registration period will not close early; it will remain open through February 22nd at 5 pm. There is no limit to the number of registrations that will be accepted. After the registration period closes on February 22nd, 2000 households will be selected by random drawing to receive spots on the new waitlist.
• Everyone who registers for the lottery will receive a letter by March 31st to notify them whether they have been selected in the lottery or not.
• Only one person per household may register. Households may only register once.
• Registering for the lottery, does NOT mean you are applying for housing.
• This is not a first-come, first-served process, so there is no need to rush to register. But don’t leave registration until the last minute in case you experience technical difficulties.
• The registration form asks you to provide the name, birthdate, social security number, race and gender of all members of your household. Since it is not possible to save an unfinished registration, it is best to have this information on-hand before beginning registration.
• A link to the online-only registration form is now available on seattlehousing.org/waitlist
• To access the most up-to-date information about this lottery and the waitlist process, visit their website at www.seattlehousing.org/waitlist and check back for updates. You can also call the waitlist hotline at (206) 239-1674. For technical problems with registration, call the waitlist hotline at (206) 239-1674 for help or submit an email using their contact form at www.seattlehousing.org/waitlist. If you do not have access to a computer, call the waitlist hotline at (206) 239-1674 for a list of locations that can serve you. Good luck!
• If you do not have access to a computer, call the waitlist hotline at (206) 239-1674 for a list of locations that can serve you, or visit one of their Computer Access Points.
• For a preview of the registration process, watch an online video tutorial. Spread the word, by posting a Section 8 Waitlist Lottery flyer (more flyers available in multiple languages at seattlehousing.org/waitlist).
For a preview of the registration process, watch an online video tutorial. Spread the word, by posting a Section 8 Waitlist Lottery flyer (more flyers available in multiple languages at seattlehousing.org/waitlist).
Good luck!
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