FACUA alerts about an online house rental fraud attempt

FACUA-Consumers in Action alerts consumers about the proliferation of attempted fraud in the house rental advertised in classified ads websites.

False owners demand the payment in advance of an amount of money arguing that they are not able to show the apartment because they live abroad or they have to travel abroad immediately.

As a solution for those cases, they propose that the users pay in advance for one or several months as a deposit into an bank account for long term rents, amount that may represent a big part or the full amount for holiday rental.

Fraud techniques

The payment method the swindlers demand is a bank transfer or the sending of a money remittance to the person identified as the owner or to the supposed account of a courier comp