Cork students warned of accommodation fraud

Third-level students in Cork have been urged to be vigilant of accommodation fraud after gardaí received more than 20 reports of fraud costing the victims tens of thousands of euros.

There have been 26 separate incidents of accommodation fraud reported in the Cork City Division since the start of the year with the incidents including both domestic and international fraud, and the reported loss to those affected totalling some €60,000.

Gardaí outlined one of the most recent frauds where a young French student was duped into handing over €3,000 in a deposit and two months’ rent in advance to a person who turned out to be a fraudster.

The student had just arrived in Ireland from France on September 3rd as she was due to start in a Cork college on the following Monday morning.

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Before coming to Cork, she had posted on a Facebook group looking for accommodation. According to gardaí, the student was messaged by a man, who said his landlord had a room for rent, and he provided her with the details of the landlord, who was French-Irish, and his phone number which was also French.

The French student proceeded to contact the man, purporting to be the landlord, by phone, and after some discussion, she paid him via bank transfer over €3,000 for a deposit and two months’ rent in advance for the room.

The student transferred the money from her French bank account to the man’s bank account, but when she arrived at the rental property the door was answered by a resident who told her that there was no room for rent and that the name she had been given was not the name of the landlord.

There were also two separate incidents in Cork city where students paid out €2,200 and another student €1,200 as a deposit for the same premises in Cork that did not exist. Another person paid more than €2,800 as a deposit for a property, but the house had been sold to new owners.

Gardaí warned that although these frauds were all in Cork, they also had reports of Irish students and others going abroad for a year being defrauded when forwarding deposits to people purporting to be landlords or house vendors in their destination cities and countries.

Gardaí said one student was going on an Erasmus exchange to Spain and sent an online deposit of €1,500 only for the accommodation offer to prove fraudulent, with the entire deposit lost.

In another case in May, a person was seeking a holiday home in Portugal and lost over €8,700 through a fraudulent site, while in June, another person was also looking for holiday accommodation and sent €10,000 to a company only to discover the company had been reported for fraud by others.

According to gardaí, prospective tenants should watch out for a number of warning signs, including when the landlord is unable to meet up to show you the property in person or when they only communicate through text or WhatsApp or some another social media platform.

Those looking for accommodation should also beware of cloned sites or when the property is being offered with no questions asked and with payment being demanded immediately before signing the lease on the property, they warned.

Prospective tenants should also be wary if they are asked to pay the deposit and rent in advance by cash, cryptocurrency or pay money via a non-bank transfer such as wire transfer. People should always insist on a proper receipt and never pay for long-term accommodation through short-term letting sites.

Gardaí also urged people never to agree to rent a property without first viewing it, ensuring the keys work and ensuring they have the proper contact details for the landlord or agent.