The red flags for housing scams

There are quite a few scammers active in the Groningen housing market. How can you spot them? Just €600 for a fancy apartment at Herman Colleniusstraat? No way!

I had racked up €285 in fees before ever stepping foot inside the modern, ideally located apartment listed on Herman Colleniusstraat, west of Groningen city centre.
For anyone who has tried to find housing in Groningen, the backdrop is familiar: a shortage of available rooms in and around the city, alongside persistent warnings about scams and false advertising on social media platforms.

Amid recent news reports that Groningen landlords charge too much for rent in 53 percent of cases, rental site Pararius has also called for scammers on TikTok and Instagram to delete fake listings using stolen images of apartments, rooms and studios from its site, as reported by NOS Stories.

The video shows a separate kitchen and dining area, a living room, balcony, toilet and shower room, inclusive of all utilities

With this in mind, I investigated the matter by messaging realtor pages about listings that seemed a little too good to be true. What I encountered, mostly on TikTok, were several recurring red flags. Many of the scam pages follow a similar pattern.

The first is the price. I have viewed a video tour of an extremely spacious, bright, one-bedroom private apartment on Herman Colleniusstraat. It shows a separate kitchen and dining area, a living room, balcony, toilet and shower room, inclusive of all utilities, for €600 a month? Unfortunately, not in this economy.

When you express interest, the evasive rent management page you deal with (with no name or number attached) will usually request payments before a promised in-person viewing. These include an application fee for quick approval and a deposit of a couple of hundred euro required upfront. (Indeed, this was the moment I had to pay these €265 for visiting the Colleniusstraat apartment.)

Scammers are often very quick to reply, but they can disappear in an instant – a running theme in many victims’ experiences

Another red flag is the use of messaging apps which allow secret and disappearing messages, such as Telegram. Much like Whatsapp, but with hidden features, Telegram is a widely known encrypted messaging service and is an app of choice used by some of these rental pages.

Sparse profiles and poor English or Dutch are also common. Spelling mistakes, missing letters and a lack of grammatical coherence appear regularly when communicating with people who are often very quick to reply, but can disappear in an instant – a running theme in many victims’ experiences.

Scam listings are frequently posted in Facebook groups, where large numbers of house hunters gather to search. The people posting them often have suspect profiles, with many having scarcely posted on their accounts.

The listing looks legitimate, the video tour looks real, the place itself exists, the address too

There is also pressure to act quickly. Once you fail to complete an application form within what they consider a reasonable amount of time, these ‘rental management’ pages can begin to badger you for a response.
Perhaps the most difficult red flag to spot is that the listing looks legitimate. The place itself exists. The tour looks real. The address exists. This can make it easier to trust someone, particularly when they are preying on people desperate to secure somewhere to live.

The owner of a real estate agency Verra Makelaars, that is being imitated on TikTok by a fake page, has spoken out on LinkedIn. Niek Verra wrote: ‘The good name of Verra Makelaars has been misused by TikTok scammers for several months. Anyone who knows us understands that this is not an advertisement from us and that we are not located in Groningen or Gorinchem, but if you don’t know us, you simply fall for it. Politicians must do something about this, as the police lack the capacity and hundreds of desperate home seekers are falling victim to this abuse.’

This year at least five international Hanze students have been scammed

The problem is also being encountered by students at Hanze. This year Merel de Vroome, Housing Officer at Hanze International Office, has spoken with five or six students that have been scammed. ‘I always advise them to go to the police. I then try to help them find a new room. Usually it works out, but it can be quite bitter if they lose out on money.

The Hanze Housing Officers always warn upfront. ‘Please, if you have any doubts, contact the international office first and we can check, before giving your personal information or before you make any payments.’

Lazar Popov, the co-founder of Domakin.nl, a company that assigns a verified agent to attend accommodation viewings for students before they arrive in the country, says they are happy to uncover scams. ‘It saves people a lot of money and emotional damage. We started the company because we wanted to help students find housing and were sick of subscription-based services.’

‘Criminals who set up false house rental pages are becoming more savvy and adapting to more modern ways of scamming’

Having lived in the Netherlands for the past 9 years, Lazar, who is originally from Bulgaria, says the criminals who set up false house rental pages are becoming more savvy and adapting to more modern ways of scamming. ‘Currently, they seem to give contact information of the person moving out, which could be a second scammer, to get more trust from the person. Then they might ask for less money prior to viewing the place, which they promise they will return, and then they disappear.’

According to Lazar the people behind the newer types of scams may not even be based in the Netherlands or the EU, making them more difficult for Dutch authorities to pursue.

After his former landlord changed his story around eight times, Horia wanted to take the case to court, but he didn’t have the means to do so

Not all housing disputes involve false rental pages. Some tenants also report allegedly fraudulent behaviour from landlords. Horia Nita (22) from Romania: ‘I moved out because I told the landlord multiple times pipes were leaking and nothing was done about it, the apartment flooded. Then the fridge broke, and after about a month without any response, I was desperate to move. If I found a replacement person to live there instead of me, the landlord agreed to give me back my deposit, verbally and via Whatsapp. At some point, he switches. That was a trauma and it never got resolved.’

A physics student at RUG, Horia was advised to take the case to court after his former landlord changed his story around eight times, but he didn’t have the means to do so. His experience highlights another difficulty facing renters: even when a person, property and rental agreement are real, resolving a dispute can still require time, money and access to legal support.

The recurring warning signs found during this investigation were requests for money before a viewing, pressure to act quickly, anonymous or sparse profiles, communication through disappearing-message services and deals that appear unusually cheap for what is being offered.

In a overheated housing market where people feel they have to act immediately, taking the time to verify who is behind a listing may be one of the few protections future tenants have.

Illustration: Yateesha van Loon.