Hi, I am looking for a room in Brussels and I am having a hard time to recognize whether the renters are scammer or not. I have chat a few times with people through Facebook, Emails and Whatsapp. I notice that it is safe to say that people with whatsapp, 90% of the time are not scammers.
Their modus operandi are almost always the same throughout Facebook or other housing rental website:
1. Through Facebook, you need to PM them or they will PM you first, telling to email their GMAIL account.
2. They are far away (not in the country at the moment), their parents who lived there are either dead or went to vacation.
3. They will tell you to email them your: 1. Passport 2. National ID / Driving License 4. Your Payslip / Work contract / Proof of Living
4. Ask you to deposit money into the bank first whether it is their parents bank account, personal account, their lawyer account or website account
5. Their lawyer will then contact you and give you so called suspicious rent agreement to convince you
However sometimes, they can be very smart and convincing like, they do not want your money first.
They only need your confidential information and they said you can transfer the money after tour/video call.
So,
How can I really know whether this one as shown in the picture is not a scammer?
I have tried a lot of platform:
1. Facebook Marketplace
2. Facebook Group (Bruxelles a Louer, Bruxelles Location Appartement, Colocation Bruxelles etc)
3. Immoweb
4. Spotahome
5. HousingAnywherw
6. Baitil
7. Immovla
and many more…
8 comments
You gave your email and phone nr?
1) Their profile looks fake.
2) Don’t send a copy of your ID.
3) They have a lawyer? Sounds fishy to me.
I believe this may be a scam.
Put a watermark with their email over anything you send as a doc or pic.
No one would use a lawyer for renting out. No one. A realtor, maybe some idiot. But not a lawyer. Scam.
How to ensure you are not ripped off? There is only one way and that is finding a spot while you are here. Get an Airbnb or similar for the first month while going flat hunting.
1. Have you tried googling the lawyer?
2. If you grab the higher resolution profile pic from Whatsapp (View contact, tap profile pic, it should open the full version), you can put it into Google image search to see if it pops up somewhere. If she’s using stock images or some model’s pictures, she’s most likely fake and you can easily find out that way.
Sounds to me they just want your confidential data, id etc to possibly open bank accounts etc..
Holy fuck guy, of course this is a scam. Don’t rent anything without having seen it.
The scammer already got what they needed. Most scammers scam for identity impersonations these days, not money, because these are worth more on the dark web.
The trick they use is called ‘misdirection’ where they try to make the victim feel safe that he’s not yet paying them and still have their money, while in fact the scammer was not at all interested in the money, but rather the valuable juicy identity information that were all given for free by said victim.
The worst part is, even if convo goes south or the deal is not done entirely, the victim will never have a clue that he actually got scammed out of his informations.
The best way to avoid it is by getting all the info via whatsapp, but when documents have to be sent, always ask for a face to face meetup. No landowner would refuse it, and you will be able to confirm their faces and have written agreements signed and agreed upon in case things go south.