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LANDLORDS WHO CAN’T show a property as they’re out the country. Keys only given when the first month’s rent is paid. A young woman requesting payment to her mother to prove that someone is “really interested” in a room.
These are examples of some of the dubious requirements asked of college students looking for a place to live for the new term.
Properties and places to live which seem too good to be true – and generally are.
It starts with a posting for an apartment or a house online. The posting could be on Daft.ie or some other property site. Or, increasingly, someone will put a listing on one of the many Facebook group pages for people looking for a place to live.
The poster will give details of an available apartment (usually, it will be great value and in great condition), leave an email address and ask to be contacted.
Once contact is made, the poster will generally request money upfront. Most of the time, the scam works by asking the prospective renter to pay a deposit and first month’s rent before the property can be viewed.
A variety of reasons are given for this requirement: the landlord doesn’t want you wasting their time; or they are out of the country and need to rent the property quickly, etc.
Transfer the money – and you won’t hear from them again.
“The rise of absolute cowboys”
The first round of CAO offers are out today, with students up and down the country finding out where it is they will be going to study.
With the offers will come a surge in people looking for a place to live for the new term ahead.
This desperate scramble is the ideal time for scammers to take advantage, and according to the gardaí and student unions and accommodation officers across the country, the number of rental scams spikes at this time of year.
Earlier this month, gardaí released guidelines on how students can avoid these type of scams, and warned people to be wary when dealing with prospective landlords.
The scenario above is just one type of way scammers get people to part with their cash.
In other instances, a scammer could show prospective renters around a property, get a deposit from several people and flee with the cash. Another version can be when everything appears to proceed normally with the transaction until the key the tenant was given doesn’t work and the landlord disappears.
“The accommodation landscape is tough to navigate and there is next to no availability [for students],” says Ailbhe O’Halloran, accommodation officer with UCD Student’s Union.
“What’s making it worse is the rise of absolute cowboys coming out of the woodwork with scams.
Since I’ve started three weeks ago I’ve gotten an average of four emails a day of people being scammed. By all accounts it [has] increased this year.
O’Halloran says that students have been wise to the scams and she hasn’t had any reports of people actually parting with money, but that could change as term time gets closer.
“So far I’ve only had people flagging things or asking my opinion,” she says.
But if anyone actually did pay the money it will only become an issue when they show up [in September].
Accommodation trouble
UCD SU has been proactive in highlighting and addressing the issues facing students trying to find a place to live in Dublin.
Last month, members ran a social media campaign using the popular platform Snapchat to show some of the rundown and unsuitable properties being offered to students at high cost.
They have also put together a document on how students can identify and avoid scams.
Emails (seen by TheJournal.ie) from scammers fit a similar profile.
The English is generally broken and the terminology is sometimes odd or jarring. The would-be landlord has recently moved out of the country or is not available for a viewing.
In each case money is asked for upfront for a variety of reasons. An example of an email received by students is below:
“The scammers don’t always do their homework,” says O’Halloran.
But the student doesn’t always do their homework when they’re desperate for somewhere to live.
Desperate for somewhere to live
Ireland’s private rental market is under enormous strain.
According to Daft.ie, rents rose by an average of 13.4% in the first quarter of the year across the country.
Rents are by far at their highest in Dublin, with the average property in the capital costing €1,668 a month. It is not unusual for a person to be paying upwards of €700 per month for a room in a house share in the city.
Other urban areas like Cork and Galway are also feeling the pinch from a chronic lack of supply.
Into this already strained market come ever-increasing numbers of students.
A report from the Higher Education Authority in 2015 found that the country had a deficit of about 25,000 student beds in 2014. This deficit was likely to grow as the number of students went up over the years.
Thousands of beds of student specific accommodation have either opened over the past few years or are in the planning and development stages.
However, many of these are outside of the average student’s price range (with some of the rooms starting out at €249 per week.
According to Lorcán Ó Maoileannaigh, SU president at NUI Galway, a lack of supply is making students more desperate and therefore easier targets for scammers.
“It’s not as though these scams are new,” he tells TheJournal.ie.
“Scammers are identifying that students are the most vulnerable cohort of people.
Especially if you have students who are panicking and will take the first things that will come up.
Ó Maoileannaigh says that students in Galway are under enormous pressure to find a place to live in time for the new term, and that may impact their judgement.
“The students are desperate,” he says.
If you find a house within your price range… you’re so happy to be in accommodation that you’ll jump the gun and you’ll put down a deposit without being sure.
Have you you come across or been victim to a rental scam? Get in touch on cormac@thejournal.ie
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“The English is generally broken”. Looks like the boys from Lagos have spotted an opportunity.
@BrianMcB: could also be a Dub as well :)
Better take cover now!
@BrianMcB: these scammers are no different to our government.if there was any good in our government they should be able to bring in legislation to sort the problem e.g. Make it illegal for anyone to let out properly to students without going through a registered letting agency.
Why is Opportunity Leo swanning around in Canada when he should be sorting this problem. A real problem for real people (FG members don’t qualify as real people)
@Roger Clarke: He is primarily discussing trade deals with Canada, it’s his job.
@Atheos Euripides: it is indeed his job but tending to long term home matters should take precedence
@Roger Clarke: What do you think the Taoiseachs job is?
@Roger Clarke: Far be it fom me to defend FG, but this is the Garda’s job not the Taoiseachs
There is actually a reason for the poor spelling and grammar. Scammers don’t want to be contacted by someone who will be sceptical about the terms. A person who will overlook poor spelling and grammar is usually someone who is either desperate to find housing or generally gullible. This is the rule of thumb for the Nigerian scams as well.
can’t see why each university shouldn’t have accomadation for every student-they are surely getting enough money between fees and government grants etc
@TheBluffmaster2: UCD, Trinity, DCU and DIT between them have over 80,000 students and that doesn’t include the smaller Dublin based colleges like NCI or ones further out like Tallaght and NUIM. Then there’s the rest of the country.
Higher institutes simply do not have the resources to built housing units for 80,000 people. That’s bigger than the Dublin City Council housing waiting list and they reckon it’ll take 30 years to clear that backlog, assuming no further growth.
It can’t be done. A more realistic goal would be to try and provide guaranteed accommodation for all first year students. The premise being that returning students are a bit wiser and have much more time to look for a place to stay.
@Seán J. Troy: systematic of housing problems in Dublin.Things are bad enough without flooding the capital with 80000 people extra.univercities should be spread throughout the country.
Cowboys Ted
It’s a nasty scam to pull. It could put some people at risk of homelessness especially if they send the deposit too. But there’s no real deterrent as the scammers pretty much remain anonymous and doubt the Gardai would do too much because they probably can’t . Stiffer sentences would reduce the amount of these scams but that’s not likely to happen unfortunately . Even if the scam does make someone homeless
This has been around for a couple of years now. Similar to the airbnb scam but without the fancy fake website. If somebody asks you for money up front without meeting them, viewing the property, etc. then what you do next is fairly obvious but not to some apparently.
Keys only given when the first months rent is paid – is that a sign of fraud? I would have thought it to be the norm that the tenant pays the deposit and the first months rent in advance and then receives the keys in return? The landlord also needs to protect themselves from tenants.This meeting should take place in the property itself and not on the first viewing.
Welcome to the real worlds kids. Life is tough and full of challenges.This may be one of your first but most definitely not the last you will face as an adult.
@mickmc: That’s patronizing and condescending and completely unhelpful to stressed students.
@Diogenes: In the words of Father Jack “I so so sorry……”
@mickmc: Taking joy in people being robbed. Classy guy.
@Eamonn Sheen: I don’t think he’s taking joy from the misfortune of others to be fair. The message is simple: don’t hand your money over to strangers especially when you have never met them.
Showeracu**ts
have your say