Hi everyone,

I am supposed to relocate to Berlin on November 1st for work purposes. After an extensive search through wg-gesucht, immonet, and immobilienscout24, and realizing that the process is not as easy and everyone demands a Schufa that I don’t have since I’m not in Germany yet, I decided to go for short-term rental websites. I checked Wunderflats and HousingAnywhere and found a [studio apartment](https://housinganywhere.com/room/1870841/de/Berlin/sch-neberger-ufer) on HousingAnywhere that was listed by an “Excellent Advertiser”. After booking, I paid the first month’s rent as well as HA’s commission (€1150 total) and signed a contract, which was with a rental company called “*Co*\-*Living Service GmbH & Co. KG”.* The contract stated that I had to pay the deposit with a bank account transfer. I was afraid it would be a scam so I contacted HA’s customer support and they assured me that the advertiser has had many successful bookings, and I already saw that many people found their first apartments through that website, so I paid the money (€2300).

Everything was going well, the advertiser gave me their WhatsApp and I contacted them and they told me that the caretaker would be in the location on November 1st so check me in. However, yesterday very late at night, I received a message from the advertiser that the head of the rental company has been changed and that they have postponed the move-in date indefinitely, and my move-in date is ONLY 3 days from now. The rental company’s website was up and running throughout the previous period, but right now they deactivated their website. They no longer reply to emails and they blocked me on WhatsApp and their advertiser on HousingAnywhere stopped replying as well.

The customer support is not doing anything and all they say is that they are investigating the issue, but that is all. I guess my money is beyond returning at this point.

Has this ever happened to anyone before? I heard that many people had successful bookings on HousingAnywhere, but I was scammed out of my money and I have no place to go to when I arrive in Berlin. I am beyond stressed and frustrated at this point that I am planning on canceling everything because I don’t know how will I ever find a place. I checked Wunderflats and turns out that they have the same deposit and rent payment in advance to the landlord’s bank account, and I don’t want to be scammed again. My plan was to stay at these short-term rentals for 3 months till I get my Schufa and start looking for another place. Plus I don’t even know German.

Any advice would be appreciated!

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