A PROPERTY tenant claims she has found hundreds of apartment scams "running rampant" on Facebook Marketplace.
The tenant who moved to York in the Summer, thankfully into a real-life flat, has said that when she began her property search, she found fake flats going for cheap prices on the digital marketplace site.
Her suspicions were raised after contacting two alleged 'landlords'.
The tenant, who did not wish to be named, told The Press: "I saw two amazing apartments for inexpensive rates, when I messaged the ‘landlords’ they both messaged me back with the exact same message.
“The fact that both apartments were too good to be true, as well as the fact that they both had the same response, led me to look into it further.
"Both of their postings were the same format - one of the pictures was a wall of text, describing the apartment, saying the rent included all bills.”
She told The Press that the ‘scam rentals’ tend to have the same tell-tale signs.
She said: “Most of the apartments in these scams look really luxe, they’re normally inexpensive for York.
“If you click on the commerce profile, you’ll see the ‘landlord’ has apartments ‘for rent’ in cities all over the UK.
“The seller being in ‘Holiday mode’ with an email address is common. To explain why they have you email, they usually explain that they’re posting for a family member.
"I presume they move you to email to avoid Facebook scam detecting software.”
Matt Boxall, head of public protection at City of York Council, said: "Trading standards are aware of frauds linked to property lettings where potential tenants are asked to pay large deposits but the properties don’t actually exist.
"If you are looking to rent a property research the person letting it.
"The National Trading Standards Estate Agents and Lettings team has a useful search tool which lets you check whether an agent is registered with a redress scheme, which is required by law."
A spokesperson for Meta, who own Facebook said: "We’re sorry people are being misled in this way.
"We continue to invest in people and technology to remove this type of activity from our platforms, and we urge people to report any suspicious listings, accounts or posts to us and the police.
"We’ve also donated £3 million to Citizens Advice to deliver a UK Scam Action Programme which raises awareness of online scams and helps victims.”
Anyone who has been tricked into paying money for a property which didn’t materialise can contact trading standards via the citizens advice consumer helpline by calling 0808 223 1133.
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