How rental fraud works, and how to stay out of it

The most widespread scheme. The advert is attractive, the price is below the market, the photos are good. The person tells you they are "out of town at the moment" or "abroad" and asks for a small sum to hold the flat. Once it is sent, the number goes dead.

The power of this one is psychological: the sum is deliberately small, because people think hard about large amounts and wave through small ones as "hardly a risk". The fraudster collects that small amount from hundreds of people.

The rule is simple: no payment until you have seen the flat with your own eyes and met the owner face to face. "Reserving it", "holding the keys", "confirming the agreement" are all the same request wearing different clothes.

The second scheme uses pictures lifted from the internet or from another advert. The flat looks lovely and either does not exist or is in a different city entirely. Sometimes the photos are of a real flat — just not one the advertiser has any right to let.

Checking is easy. Look at whether the furniture, the direction of the windows and the light are consistent, and whether the rooms plausibly belong to one flat. Pictures as clean as a magazine cover, with no trace of anyone living there and not one personal object in sight, deserve suspicion. The most reliable test is video: ask the owner for a live video call and a walk through the flat in real time. A fraudster almost never can.

Here the money is asked for the list, not the flat: "pay the fee and we will give you the owners’ numbers from our database". Once you pay you receive numbers that are out of date or have been sold to everyone else as well. You call — the flats are long gone, and the money does not come back.

Sometimes it is dressed up as a "contract processing charge", a "site service fee" or a "listing access fee". None of these is normal practice. Searching for a place to rent is free for the tenant: money goes to the owner, after you have seen the flat, and on the basis of a contract.

This one is subtler, because the person really does meet you. They take you to the flat, show you round, even put the keys in your hand — and ask for the deposit on the spot. But no contract is signed, no ownership document is produced and no receipt is given. When you come back the next day the lock may have been changed, or somebody else may be living there.

There is one defence: money only after a signed contract and a sight of the ownership document. Check whose name is on it and compare it with the passport. If a relative is letting the flat rather than the owner, ask for the power of attorney. This is not rudeness — it is routine, and an honest owner is not offended by it.

In the sublet scheme, someone genuinely rents a flat for a short period, then presents themselves as the owner and lets it to several people at once. They take a deposit and a month’s rent from each and disappear. The people who paid are left facing the actual owner.

This is exactly why the document check matters. The name given as the owner in the contract has to match the name on the ownership document. If it does not, that person’s right to sublet has to be confirmed in writing. A one-minute check makes the entire scheme unworkable.

First, preserve everything: the messages, a picture of the advert, the phone number, the payment receipt or transfer confirmation. Take the screenshots immediately — the advert and the account can be deleted within hours.

Then report it to the police, and at the same time flag the advert on the platform with the report button. That second step is the one people skip, and it is the one that protects the next person: a flagged advert goes to moderation and the number behind it is checked against every other listing.