Rental fraud has more than doubled since 2021. Here's how the most common scams actually work, the warning signs to watch for, and what to do if you've already paid.
Rental fraud is no longer a rare, unlucky story you hear about secondhand. It's a growing, organised problem. The annual cost of rental fraud across England, Wales and Northern Ireland more than doubled between 2021 and 2025, rising from £7.2 million to £14.5 million, with over 5,000 cases reported every year and the average victim losing around £1,400. Some scams are opportunistic, but plenty are run by organised fraudsters who treat fake listings as a numbers game: contact enough desperate renters, and someone will pay before they've had a chance to check.
Here's what the scams actually look like, how to catch them before you lose money, and what to do if you've already handed something over.
The classic version starts with a real property, often scraped from a legitimate listing site, and a fake advert placed elsewhere, frequently on Facebook groups or community marketplace pages. The photos are real. The address is real. The "landlord" is not. They'll tell you they're abroad, unable to show the property in person, but happy to send you the keys once you've transferred a deposit and the first month's rent. By the time you turn up with your suitcase, the real occupant answers the door, and the money is long gone.
A newer variant is even harder to spot. Fraudsters will rent a property legitimately, often as a short-term or holiday let, for just a few days. During that window, they run real viewings with real keys and real access, taking deposits from multiple prospective tenants for a tenancy that will never exist. One case in north London saw around 20 people defrauded of roughly £8,000 combined this way, precisely because the viewing felt completely normal.
A landlord or agent who won't meet you in person or won't let you view the property before paying anything is the single biggest red flag. Genuine landlords with genuine properties have no reason to avoid a viewing.
Payment requests are the next tell. Be wary of anyone asking for a bank transfer to a personal account, payment via apps like PayPal "friends and family," gift cards, or cryptocurrency. None of these give you any real path to getting your money back if something goes wrong. A request to pay before you've seen the property, signed anything, or verified who you're dealing with should always slow you down, no matter how convincing the urgency ("someone else is viewing it tomorrow") sounds.
Where possible, pay a holding deposit or deposit by credit card or a traceable method like a direct debit rather than cash or a bank transfer to a personal account. This gives you some protection through your bank or card provider if things go wrong.
Before you commit to anything, verify who you're actually renting from. You can check the property's registered owner through the Land Registry for a small fee, which will tell you whether the name on the tenancy agreement matches who actually owns the property. Services like Rentprofile also let you verify a landlord's identity and right to let. If an agent is involved, check they're registered with a redress scheme (The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme), which is a legal requirement in England.
This is also exactly where checking real reviews earns its keep. A landlord or agent with a track record, good or bad, leaves a trail. If a "landlord" has no online footprint at all, or the property is listed by an agent with no verifiable reviews anywhere, treat that as a reason to dig further rather than a coincidence.
Contact your bank or card provider immediately and explain that you believe you've been the victim of fraud. If you paid by bank transfer, ask about a claim under the Contingent Reimbursement Model, which some banks use to refund victims of authorised push payment fraud. Report the scam to Action Fraud, and if you gave a specific individual's name or bank details, note that police may be able to act on it even if you can't get your money back directly. Keep every message, listing screenshot, and payment confirmation. You'll need them for any of the above.
Rental scams work because they exploit urgency and the pressure of a competitive market. The counter to that is simple, if not always easy in the moment: slow down, verify who you're dealing with, and never pay for something you haven't seen and can't confirm is real.
Sources: NRLA guide to avoiding landlord scams, Experian: how to spot rental fraud, HomePPL: 10 property scams happening in the UK, Surrey County Council: rental scams