If you haven’t been a victim of a scam it’s probably easy to say you’d never fall for one – but scammers are very skilled at taking advantage of people, especially those who find themselves desperately looking for a rental home.

A very common scam happening on platforms such as marketplace and rental groups – Scammers using legitimate photos of rental properties listed by estate agencies to trick unknowing tenants into paying them large sums of money as security deposits & upfront rental.

Scammers even go as far as posing as owners of properties which are currently available through agencies, sending prospective tenants to view the properties during open viewings hosted by the agencies with the instructions of not informing the property managers that they’re talking to the supposed owner. Once the prospective tenant has viewed the property the scammer says they’ll rent it out directly to the tenant at a reduced price because there’s no commission involved. So on the surface it all makes sense and sounds genuine – there’s a property available, you as a prospective tenant has viewed it, there’s a landlord who’s being a bit cheeky by trying to go around the property manager, but you may think that it’s ok as you’re getting a reduced rental and saving money by renting directly with the landlord, so you pay the bond and upfront rental over to the landlord, potentially even give notice at your current rental – only to find out a few days or weeks later that you’ve been scammed for thousands and you and your family have to move out because you’ve given notice at your current rental.

This will likely cause any victim severe financial harm, so hopefully this short article will shed some light on these scams and potentially save you from falling for one.

Here are a few Red Flags to look for on marketplace adverts and the poster themselves: