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THE IRISH PROPERTY Owners’ Association (IPOA) has joined other calls for caution for students to look out for signs of accommodation fraud ahead of the upcoming academic year.
The latest warning, from the landlord representative group, advocates for “heightened vigilance” among students who are seeking accommodation this year, in a dwindling market.
The IPOA said that the lack of available student accommodation is due “many property owners choosing to sell up and leave the rental market” because of “unfavourable conditions”.
The property owners’ representative body suggests that the shortage has “opened the student rental market” to criminals attempted to scam artists.
However, a separate warning from An Garda Síochána suggests that criminals are aware of how precarious the situation is and know who and where to strike.
Gardaí last week warned students “to be wary of rental scams” after its economic crime branch found around one-third of all accommodation fraud occurs during August and September each year – when students are most desperate for a place to stay as the semester begins.
Additionally around a half of all rental scams also take place in Dublin, where only one student-specific accommodation unit is advertised to rent on property portal Daft.ie as of today.
The economic crime branch also found that over half of all victims to rental scams are aged under-25, leading the student cohort to be most vulnerable to this crime. There was a 38% increase in rental scams in 2022, compared to 2021.
Housing charity Threshold, in partnership with various national students’ unions, also warned against rental scams in a new campaign. The charity say false websites, fakes accounts on social media and dummy replica websites of popular renting portals are becoming common methods that criminals use to scam students.
John-Mark McCafferty, the charity’s CEO said: “Threshold is increasingly aware of a surge of rental scams, particularly ahead of the academic period, with students unfortunately being easy targets. In a highly competitive, low supply rental market, scams are on the rise.”
The charity were particularly targeting international students, who are attempting to find accommodation before the arrive in Ireland, as Vice President for Welfare of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) Colette Murphy told The Journal last week that scams are common place especially international students.
Murphy said: “In terms of prevalence – yes, it’s very prevalent among international students.”
According to the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS) a recent survey determined that one in seven international students who travelled to Ireland fell victim to a rental scam.
Laura Harmon, Executive Director of the group said: “These students are often more vulnerable as English is not their first language and they usually don’t have relations or friends they can stay with in the short-term while looking for a place to live.
“We encourage all students to read and heed all the advice in this campaign, and to contact the various channels provided if they have concerns or queries.”
Murphy said last week that domestic students usually have much more freedom in their choices and can spot a red flag easier, compared to students who are attempting to find somewhere to stay from outside of the country.
McCafferty said that it is important that students and all renters are aware of scams and take “appropriate actions to prevent themselves from falling into these traps”.
All three warnings came with preventative measures to that students should take so they do not fall victim to rental scams. All three warnings advised tenants to always inspect the property in person, before determining and finalising any lease.
Additionally, the warning from the gardaí said that “ideally” the landlord should be registered with the Residential Tenancies Board and the rent match the average price for location in the area.
Threshold and An Garda Síochána both warned students against paying through cash, and advised that all transactions for rent should be done through bank transfer, as a a renter will would have a higher chance of recovering their money from your bank.
Gardaí go further and suggest not to transfer money via Revolut and do not send funds by cryptocurrency or to a random PayPal address.
“Pay in a way that is traceable and/or refundable,” their warning added.
Threshold, along with the USI and ICOS, both advise students to look out for “red flags” such as very low rent, a landlord living abroad and providing foreign bank account details or inconsistent information.
Additionally, IPOA says that prospective tenants should look out for rent prices that are “too good to be true” and offers through messaging services like WhatsApp.
Chair of the association Mary Conway said: “While it is disheartening that these precautions have become necessary, the presence of unscrupulous actors across various sectors, not just in the rental market, necessitates that people are ultra-vigilant when paying deposits.
Conway added that the property owners group are committed to protecting the reputation of real landlords and protecting future tenants from fraud.
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Shows what he knows. The reason we have too many cars on Irish roads is because the public transport systems aw not fit for purpose
@Joe x: fewer cars = more room for public transport/active transport = better public transport/active travel. Sometimes the stick must come before the carrot.
@Name not provided: but then what happens if more and more ppl get out of their cars and use public transport and get rid of the car (many of course will still keep them) but revenue for Car Tax and petrol will decrease. Our carbon credit purchase will decline yes but you can be damn sure they will increase/tax something to bring it in somewhere else!
More like empty buses tailgating each other and preventing flow of other traffic.
@Mike 100: ah right, it’s too many busses that are the problem. Not all the queues single-occupancy vehicles I see every day on my commute.
Sure in Galway the traffic is stymied with hundreds of traffic lights strategically placed to prevent the flow of all traffic in the name of cyclists .. thanks green party … wasters of the hard working taxes
@Jimmy Wallace: try commuting to WORK sometime in Galway. I don’t have all day like some to make stories up Jimmy .
@Jimmy Wallace: they love an auld conspiracy on this forum Jimmy.
Cars have become a great litmus test for determining if a public figure is a bluffer or not. Anyone who says cars are the problem clearly doesn’t know what they are talking about. Its like saying the problem with hospitals is too many sick people. Why don’t they stay at home and google home remedies.
@Keyser Söze: Perhaps a better analogy would be that 50% of car journeys are like people overloading an A&E with minor sniffles and small bruises.
Definitely true, but we need GOOD public transit in order to fix the issue. We also need AFFORDABLE housing along public transit routes. Paying 1/2 million euro for a 1-bed hovel or 2,000/month for a glorified bedsit and absolutely having to bear the extra expenses of a car and parking in Dublin during the work day is insane. We need a revolution in public transit and a paradigm shift in housing.
@Todd Hebert: Nothing will be done, because nothing is what we do best.
Almost all the hospitals are city centric,do they think all patients are capable of walking or cycling in and out .. TOTAL CRASS Thinking
@Michael James Brennan: They don’t think that, that’s why you won’t hear anyone saying that cars should be banned from accessing hospitals (feel free to tell me who does). The reality is, that many if not most people visiting a hospital can do so using public transport, walking or cycling. I visit a hospital twice a year. I do so by cycling or taking the bus to it.
Decent public transport would help….
@Tom Newell: which requires fewer cars on the road.
Wasn’t bus connects supposed to sort out a lot of this? I know that it isn’t fully implemented yet. We have no metro and not much light rail. Alternatives are few and far between. Long stretches of little investment are coming home to roost.
Improve the public transport throughout Ireland, then there might be less cars. Start with the pricing structure.
He is right,there is way to many cars on roads
Maybe if your buses were punctual and reliable, people wouldn’t need their cars
Public transport where I live us fantastic, world class
That crash on the M50, I hope no-one was injured, took 7 of them off the road.
There’s been several very progressive and smart proposals put to Government over the last decade alone that would more than help resolve this issue. Proposals such as reliable park and ride facilities based on all the main arteries leading into the city, each dotted 10km or so outside the city centre is one that would easily work if operated properly.
Others such as ways to arange and incentivise car pooling in a monetary way could also work as part of an overall strategy. But it’s obvious to see even with the Greens in and these solutions being also pro – green, there’s no appetite from Government to do anything to implement and change the situation
Just to clarify and add to my comment.. Its the amount of single passenger cars
Is that the reason they Scrapped the X21 SERVICE GALWAY DUBLIN
have your say