A new scam, from the “landlords” who advertised properties on the rental websites, ask prospective tenants to transfer money to their relatives in order to provide sufficient evidence for paying the rent.

Renters who search properties on sites such as Gumtree and Craig’s List are now being warned about a new scam. “Landlords” try to attract and “trap” more prospective tenants by offering properties in top locations with reasonably cheap rents. They claim to be out of the country and ask the tenants to provide them with evidence to prove their affordability to pay the deposit.

Prospective tenants are requested to get a scanned copy of the receipt for transferring their money into their friends’ or relatives’ accounts by using the money transfer agent. However, by doing so - the tenants might have fallen into the trap of the scam already. The transaction receipts may have got enough information for criminals to collect money from their victim’s bank account.

Fake landlords even try to advertise properties that cannot be viewed from search engines such as Google Street View. Thus, the prospective tenants are bounded to believe that the information advertised on the property is real.

Deposit Protection Service (DPS), the only official deposit protection services accredited by the Government, warned and advised all tenants to find out if the landlords they are dealing with are registered as well as how their deposits are protected. It further recommended those who had already made the transaction under this kind of activities to seek legal help and advice.

There are some signs of frauds that prospective tenants should be aware of:

1. The photographs shown in the advertisement on the properties might seem to be taken out from a catalogue.
2. The renting price on the particular property may be listed below the average rental price in the surrounding areas - where the deal seems too good to be real.
3. The contents of the emails sent by the so-called “landlords” might contain suspicious ideas such as directing the tenants to transfer the money to their closed ones or asking for the money before the tenants viewed the property.

People looking for rental properties should be aware of scammers nowadays; while once you have fallen into the trap, you should seek legal advice to get out of the situation and to report to the related authorities in order to stop further actions from the “fake” landlords.