I'm new here & renting woes.

Hello,

I joined after searching for an e-mail address of a 'landlord' I had been in contact with on Gumtree, via google when I thought it sounded like a scam (Wire Transfer to a friend). I wasn't aware just how widespread the problem of scammers was there... has anybody ever got a property in London through the site?

Anyway long story short, I am looking to rent in London (close to the City) with my girlfriend. I haven't had any luck with estate agents (who have been terrible) so I thought I would look on Gumtree...

Could anybody suggest what I should do when looking for a property please? As we are very new to the house/flat hunting game.

Hope to hear from somebody!

Welcome to Scamwarners, faux.anon!

The main thing that will help to keep you safe is that you need to be able to see the place before renting. Any story of how the owner is "out of town' and can't show you the flat - that's a scammer. Any mention of Western Union, Moneygram etc. - scam.

Knowing how to find the headers of an email to find the IP address and see where the message was sent from, will also help to protect you. See my sig for instructions, but please be aware that gmail and a couple other companies strip that info. There are also a couple of tricks that the more tech savy scammers can use to hide or distort where the email originated.

Always google the person's name, email address and any other info to see what comes up. If you are sent a web site to go to remove the www. part and put the rest in here: http://www.iptrackeronline.com/whois.php. If the website is quite new, or only registered for a year or two, it's most likely fake.

And a small addition. Be very careful when people say they have an apartment/ house or whatever but they have taken the keys with them because they are travelling or working elsewhere. They will ask money to be sent via wu, mg, courier etc before they send the keys to you or whatever story they tell. I don't know of anyone who travels interstate/ overseas or whatever and takes the keys to the property with them. But the fraudulant scammers make it sound believable. If you read through some of the other rental type scams in the forums, you will see a common trend.
I must agree the rental market listed on the internet is like walking through a minefield, but keeping all the danger signs in mind and knowing what to look out for should keep you in good stead.