An English couple handed over €550 as a deposit on a rental property that did not exist.

Charles and Joyce Renfrew, a British couple seeking to take an apartment in Paris, were the victims of a scam that is all to common on some Internet sites in France.

In their case the site in question was Le Bon Coin, a useful and popular French small ads site, but which can also be a trap for the unwary, as the registration requirements are minimal.

They responded to an ad offering an apartment to let, for what seemed the very reasonable rental of €550 per month.

'We proposed to take it for a long let of at least a year', they told French-Property.com.

‘We actually visited the apartment and met the landlord. He indicated there were a number of other people interested, and that in order to secure the property he required one month's rent.

He stated that because we were not living in France, he required payment in cash, for which we were given a written receipt.'

‘However, when we returned to the UK and tried to contact him again on an e mail address and phone number he had given us, we found the number did not exist, and there was no response to our e mails.’

'We also found that the address given on the rental receipt was also fake.'

With some difficulty Charles and Joyce did manage to report the incident to the French police, from whom they understand that the fraudster managed to obtain a short letting on the property, and during this period showed several dozen potential tenants around it.

Thankfully, there are few victims of such scams, often because of the crude way that the fraudsters seek to obtain money.

Top Tips

There is no fully secure way of avoiding becoming a victim of a rental scam, but a number of elementary precautions should be taken.

1. i. Be cautious about handing over the full amount of the letting before actually arriving at the accommodation unless it is through a well known registered company. We would recommend no more than 30% of the total as a deposit. Sometimes, particularly in the case of a holiday letting, the full sum is required several weeks in advance. Only pay in advance for a private advert if you have other information that confirms the identity of the landlord and that the property really does exist.

2. ii. Request a formal letting contract that provides full information on the property and the identity of the landlord.

3. iii. If you cannot visit, check the existence of the property in the French telephone directory and/or on Google Earth.

4. iv. Carefully read any e mail from the landlord for any mispellings, excessive use of capitals, or if it is from an free e mail provider, such as gmail, yahoo, AOL or hotmail.

5. v. Ask the landlord for a copy of their identity card or other documentation that confirms their name and address. Obtain their fixed line number, and try it.

6. vi. Request supplementary photos to those that were published in the advertisement. This is to reduce the risk that the fake landlord has just copied photos of another property and used them in the advertisement. Request, in particular, photos of the grounds or the apartment block, with the property clearly visible in the grounds or block.

7. vii. If you have doubts, then arrange for a friend or member of your family to later contact the landlord and seek a booking for the same dates. If you have confirmed, but the booking is also offered to them, then clearly something is amiss!

8. viii. Be careful of Greeks bearing gifts. If the offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Scammers often place an advert with a rental below the normal market rate in order to attract as much interest as possible, and then trap a victim.

9. ix. Pay only by bankers order or cheque, to a payee who corresponds to the name of the landlord.