How to avoid rental scams

Here are a few basic rules to avoid rental scams… to be expanded in the future.

Please leave your own advice in the comments and we’ll add it here.

1. Never pay any money (apart from a small holding deposit maybe) before you more or less have the keys in your hand and you’ve confirmed that the flat/room actually exists.
2. If you are told that it’s not possible to see the flat/room because the landlord is out of the country or the current occupant doesn’t want people to view the place in person, you can be 99.9% sure it’s a scam.
3. Whenever there are two (or even more) people, two phone numbers and/or two emails involved in the flatshare or apartment rental that you have to switch between, be extra careful. It’s not a surefire way to tell a scam, but on the other hand, all scams we have dealt with and heard of so far did involve two people playing a switcharoo game. Scammers use that to confuse you and create a sense of urgency.
4. Don’t pay money after you’ve had a “video tour” of a flat or room, especially if it’s not a live tour where you can ask questions. Remember that these could be from any flat. You can ask the person doing the tour to show you the view out of a window so you can compare it to Google Street View, or you can ask us to go to the flat and view it for you if you’re not in Barcelona yet.
5. If people on Facebook respond to your room seeking post with a simple “PM”, or are telling you they have “leads” for you (the latter is a new one), be extra careful. In fact, if someone replies to you on Facebook with an offer you’re best of assuming it’s a scam… from the stories we’ve heard we’d bet money on at least 80% of those being scams. It wasn’t always like this, but that’s the unfortunate truth these days.
6. If anyone replies with a link to follow, make sure you recognize the domain and you’re sure you can trust it. There are some domains that are almost exclusively used for scams or malware spreading… at the moment it’s mainly *.mystrikingly.com.
7. If you are dealing with an agency, make sure they have an office, and check that the person you are talking to actually works there.
8. If an agency contacts you because you posted in a Facebook or WhatsApp group, make extra sure that it’s an actual agency (see above).
   Legitimate agencies don’t have to reply to posts or contact you in any way… they are busy enough already.
   Exception if you’ve publicly offered a ridiculous amount of money.
9. Check if the flat is listed on Airbnb or similar sites. A common scam is for people to rent a flat on Airbnb and then “rent it” to unsuspecting victims.
10. Use Google’s image search to find the original source of photos and make sure they are not stock photos or have been listed for other offers.
11. On Facebook, check other posts in the group… some groups are completely unmoderated, so if you see a lot of nonsense spam, you should be extra careful with the posts in those groups.

And on a little side-note: please always let us know if you encounter rental scams or other nastiness. We can sometimes help you report scams and other unwanted behaviour to the police or Ajuntament de Barcelona.