News

There is an emergence of a new rental scam in South Africa, where potential tenants pay deposits to a middleman who then disappears with their money.This just highlights again – for both tenants and landlords – the importance of working with seasoned, reputable and professional rental agents and agencies.

Industry experts say that scammers market legitimate properties, which they copy from popular property listing websites. They then place these property listings on other well known and widely used buying and selling sites. The scammers also use the correct images, as well as property description, however they change the contact details and subsequently pretend to be the landlord.

As soon as people contact them about the property, they set up an appointment with the actual agent marketing the rental property, pretending to be the interested party. They then inform the renter that they have an appointment with the agent. As soon as the actual renter has seen the property with the real estate agent, the scammer follows up with the potential tenant. If the tenant is interested in renting the property, the scammer requests that they pay a deposit directly into their account as the ‘landlord.’

Never Pay Money Into Landlord’s Account when Working with Agency

As the rental agency charges a landlord fee, the tenant therefore never deposits money directly into a landlord’s account if there is an agent involved in the transaction. In order to avoid being scammed and losing valuable money, tenants who pay deposits should on rental units should only make payments into a reputable real estate agency’s trust account.

Tenants are also advised to avoid dealing directly with landlords, unless they have an existing relationship and can vouch for their legitimacy. It would seem as more and more South African tenants and landlords are turning to rental agencies to protect themselves from scams, and this trend is only set to continue as people become warier of being scammed.

Image courtesy of : HomeTimes