Accommodation fraud: ‘I was homeless in a country I’d never been in before with no contacts at all’

Andrew Price will never forget his first day in Ireland. Having flown in from his home in Utah in the United States to start a theatre course in Trinity College, the then 19-year-old headed straight to Dún Laoghaire, where he had secured a room through a “reputable” accommodation website.

When he rang the doorbell he was met with bewilderment and confusion. The homeowner had no room to let, and was amazed to see a stranger with luggage on the doorstep who seemingly expected to move in.

“They were kind of shocked to see a random American on their doorstep,” the student recalls. “They were very confused and very sorry.”

Having paid €750 to the website for the first month’s rent, and knowing nobody in Ireland, he too was confused and upset.

“I was homeless in a country I’d never been in before with no contacts at all,” he says. “I couldn’t even book a hostel because of a major event happening in the city.”

This was two years ago. It turned out that another of the 25 students starting the stage management and technical theatre programme in TCD was also scammed and ended up sleeping on a classmate’s couch for about a month.

Price, who had never been out of the US before, remembered after being turned away from the door in Dún Laoghaire that some of his new classmates had already formed a WhatsApp group to exchange hellos. He told these then-strangers his dilemma.

[ Twelve cases of accommodation fraud reported to gardaí in JulyOpens in new window ]

“One kind soul offered me a place with his family for a week or so,” he says, joking that the downside was that the accommodation was in Cavan.

He was luckier than many of the hundreds of victims looking for a roof over their heads who are scammed each year. His payment had not been processed, he thinks, because the “landlord” had upped the “rent” at the 11th hour from €700 to €750, so he got the money back.

This week the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS) joined forces with the housing charity Threshold and the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), to launch the annual Scamwatch campaign, warning students about a range of elaborate accommodation scams.

They appealed to students to do thorough checks before paying upfront deposits or rent in advance, and to contact Threshold if dubious about a listing. This followed an alert by gardaí who last week warned that approximately one third of all accommodation fraud happens in August/September, the spike coinciding with the start of the college year.

The Garda figures show that just 30 per cent of victims are Irish, highlighting how vulnerable international students and workers can be. Twelve victims reported scams in July, with one defrauded out of €3,685. At least eight were deceived through social media or online adverts or contacts.

Laura Harmon, executive director with ICOS, says its research shows the majority of victims don’t report the fraud to gardaí.

“Some of them feel that nothing is going to be done about it, and they don’t know where to report it – especially if English is not their first language,” she says The international students’ advocate says some believe there’s no point reporting it as they won’t get their money back, and some are embarrassed that they fell for a scam.

“We are saying that it’s nothing to be embarrassed about and that some of the scams are very sophisticated, with fake websites which can look like direct replicas of Daft.ie. or fake ads on social media.”

Harmon believes the increase in accommodation fraud in recent years is connected to the housing crisis, with perpetrators preying on “desperate people” living in fear of being homeless.

A group of six young Irish women who rent a house in Ranelagh, Dublin, saw first-hand the ways in which desperate people are being preyed upon, when on five separate occasions over about six weeks, people turned up at their door expecting to move in.

[ Unregulated student digs: A home away from home or an isolating experience?Opens in new window ]

On the first occasion, one of the occupants was working from home when a group of men arrived with all their bags. Having paid a deposit, they more or less demanded to be let in – and it was an uncomfortable experience for all concerned.

Eventually the young woman closed the door on them, but the situation started to make sense when another housemate had a similar experience a week or so later.

“I saw two guys in their early 20s standing outside looking at the house for ages, which was quite odd,” she recalled. The two men, who had backpacks, glanced repeatedly from a phone to the front of the house, and when she opened the door, asked whether it was for rent.

They showed her a Facebook advert with a photo of the exterior of the house and what proved to be fake photos of the interior. “Thank God they hadn’t paid any money at that stage. They thought they were moving in the next day and that they would just come for a look at the house. If I wasn’t there they would have paid the money probably.” She says the men, who had “conversational English”, were very polite but understandably upset.

The next victim was even more upset as he had paid €1,000 upfront, having apparently been scammed through the same Facebook ad.

“The guy was visibly upset. I think he was Brazilian. We were talking to him at the door for 25 minutes,” says another of the six. This man had already known he had been scammed, but came to the address to confirm it.

There were two others who were apparently taken in by the same Facebook post – a young man and woman who had both just arrived separately in Ireland.

Both thought the house in Ranelagh was divided into apartments.

“It was darker, during the winter months, and it made you feel even worse for the people who were probably homeless by this stage,” says one of the six housemates.

They say they rang gardaí only once about the issue. “They said, ‘Oh that happens all the time. The money goes into banks abroad.’ So we didn’t ring them when it happened again.”

Among the danger signs highlighted by the Garda last week when it urged students to be alert for accommodation fraud was a potential landlord claiming to be out of the country and unable to show the renter the property unless they paid a deposit. Another red flag is “someone offering accommodation that seems very cheap”, is a red flag says Det Supt Michael Cryan. “Unfortunately, as we all know at this stage, there is no such thing as cheap accommodation any more.”

Threshold recently dealt with the case of a young woman who was interested in a one-bed apartment in Limerick city which she saw advertised on a property website.

[ International students face scams and sex-for-rent offers amid accommodation problems – reportOpens in new window ]

The landlord asked for €1,320, two months’ rent in advance, to be lodged to an Escrow holding account.

After being contacted, Threshold suspected a scam, and it transpired that the real landlord had advertised the property on Daft.ie and the scammer had stolen the images.

By being cautious, the woman did not lose any money.

Harmon warns that as technology gets more sophisticated and with advances in AI, it will be harder to track down perpetrators “who could well be operating from a laptop in London or the US”.

She says people should get an in-person viewing if possible, and if not, a virtual viewing, “to see that the property exists. And also get written confirmation, with contracts sent to you.”

She says ICOS had dealt with students who were scammed out of their life savings, and had to get on the plane home again. “And that is their experience of Ireland.”

Price, who will be returning to complete his third year at Trinity in January, says his experience didn’t put him off Ireland – “if anything, the opposite”.

He says that after that “crappy first experience”, everyone he encountered was anxious to lend a helping hand.

“Because of the kindness of Irish people I was able to stay in the country with a roof over my head, and what could’ve been months of an ordeal ended up only being an extremely stressful four days.”

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