One rule stops nearly all of them: pay nothing — no deposit, no holding fee, no "admin fee" — before you have seen the room, spoken to the person renting it and had the agreement in front of you. Seeing can be in person or on a live video call, but it has to be seeing, not being sent photos.
The five most common scams
The landlord who is abroad
They live in another country, for work or after a sudden move, and can't show you the flat. The fix is always the same: you pay the deposit and first month, and they post you the keys or a "friend" hands them over. There are no keys. It's the oldest one and it still works best.
The holding fee
Lots of people are interested, you're told, but a small payment will keep the room for you until the viewing. The amount is small on purpose: small enough that you don't think twice, multiplied by everyone else who was told the same thing.
The copied listing
Real photos of a real room, lifted from another listing or a holiday let, with a price below what the area normally costs. The price is the bait: it is set so you message fast and compare little.
The payment page that imitates a platform
To reassure you, they suggest paying "through" a well-known platform and send you a link. The page has the right logo and colours, but it isn't the platform. A safe payment happens inside the real site or app, which you reach by typing the address yourself — never through a link sent by the person being paid.
Someone renting what isn't theirs to rent
The room exists and the viewing is real, but the person renting it has no right to: a tenant subletting without permission, someone with the keys to a short-term let, a middleman who takes the money and disappears. It's the hardest to see, because everything looks normal until the real owner turns up.
What to check in the agreement, and why it matters who rents to you
The warning signs that keep repeating
- The price is clearly below what a room costs in that area.
- There's no way to view it, in person or by video, and always a new reason why.
- You're asked to pay by transfer to a foreign account, with gift cards, crypto or a money-transfer service.
- The conversation leaves the platform where you found the listing and moves to WhatsApp or email straight away.
- You're asked for a copy of your passport or ID before you've seen anything.
- They send you theirs unprompted, as proof of trust. An ID document is stolen as easily as a photo.
- There's a rush — and the rush always comes from another interested person you never meet.
Check what a room costs in your city
How to check a listing in ten minutes
- 1.Run the photos through a reverse image search. If they turn up in another city, on a holiday let or in a years-old listing, you're done.
- 2.Copy a sentence from the listing and search for it in quotes. Scam texts get reused.
- 3.Ask for a live video call walking through the room, the kitchen and the front door. Someone who has the flat has no problem doing it.
- 4.Ask in what capacity they're renting it to you: owner, agent or tenant. And if they're a tenant, whether the owner knows.
- 5.If the owner is renting to you, check they are the owner. Many countries have a public property register you can search for a small fee — HM Land Registry in England and Wales, for example.
Watch your personal data too
Not every scam goes straight for your money. A copy of your ID, a payslip or your bank details are enough to impersonate you somewhere else. Send them only when you're about to sign, only to the person signing with you, and with a watermark saying what they're for: "Only for the room agreement with [name], [date]".
If you've already paid
- 1.Call your bank as soon as you realise. If the payment is very recent, it can sometimes be stopped or recovered; every hour counts.
- 2.Keep everything: the listing, screenshots of the conversation, the account number, the payment receipts.
- 3.Report it to the police — in the UK, to Action Fraud. Without a report, banks and platforms can do very little.
- 4.Report the listing on the platform where you saw it, so it doesn't happen to the next person.
It's embarrassing, which is why so many people never mention it. But these scams are designed for people in a hurry with a move hanging over them, not for careless people.