Renting can be difficult, so here are some tips to help you.
Although in my title I mention Daft this scam is happening where ever properties can be listed and in fact you will find a lot more of these type of ads on free listing websites such as Gumtree, Freeads etc.
It was only yesterday that it was mentioned in an article in the Irish Independent how a couple looking for their first home together were scammed out of €1,400 via an ad for an apartment in Dublin 8 listed on Daft. http://goo.gl/wnNuQM
If you read the article you will see that the scammer had put a lot of effort in to making this a success and by no means was it the first time that they pulled this off. In fact most likely they are running this scam across the world on different sites using cloned credit cards to list the property. What is worrying though is the volume of ads that is currently listed which are fake and run by scammers.
Only last week a friend of mine was telling me of a close call where he and his wife were nearly scammed out of €2,400 in a similar situation. This time the property was a listing in North County Dublin and my friend and his family needed to find a rental property for only 3months due to Pyrite within their home. So as you can imagine with the shortage of units to let across Dublin as it is finding a home for 3 months at an average market value was a tough task.
When they did find a landlord willing to rent the property they were overcome with joy as it was within the vicinity of where they lived, he was willing to rent it for only 3 months and he was only asking a very reasonable rent. Once again the unit was listed on Daft and they were fully confident that this retired businessman living in Mainland Europe now was a genuine landlord willing to rent the unit short term.
As the story unfolded similar to this one the landlord was advised by his solicitor NOT to just Fedex the keys & lease over to the couple and allow them forward payment once they were in the property. No he stated that he needed to protect himself and it would be best that they transferred €1200 deposit in advance to his bank account. Luckily the couple smelt a rat and walked away.
The moral of the story is all too true if it sounds too good to be true it most likely is. It just goes to show the number of advertisements listed like this currently, my advice is to deal with genuine agencies and if you are dealing with private individuals as a renter make sure you do it in person.