Rentals and deposits

Rental scams: the deposit that does not come back

Updated 30 September 2026

Most people looking for a place to rent carry the assumption that the listing they found is a real listing, posted by the person who owns or manages the property. That assumption is the expensive part. The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center counted 12,368 real estate and rental fraud victims in 2025, with $275,110,419 in reported losses, up from 9,359 victims and $173.5 million in 2024. The fake version works because it copies a real ad, swaps the contact details, and pressures you to send a deposit before you set foot in the property.

How a fake rental listing actually works

There are two shapes the scam takes, and the FTC spells them out directly.

Scammers take over a real listing. They copy the photos, the description and the virtual tour from a property that is genuinely for rent, swap the contact information for their own, and re-post it elsewhere. You call or email about the place and you reach the scammer, not the actual landlord. From there, one of three things happens: you are asked for an application fee, a deposit, or first month rent; or you are pushed to fill in personal details like a Social Security number, a picture of your driver licence, paystubs, or screenshots of a credit score; or both.

Scammers make up a listing that does not exist. The property is not for rent at all, and sometimes the property is not there at all. The rent is set below the going rate for the area, and the listing owner claims to be out of the country or otherwise unavailable to show the unit in person. The pressure is on, because they want the deposit wired, sent by Zelle or Venmo, paid in gift cards, or paid in cryptocurrency, before you notice any of it.

The FBI 2025 numbers, and the 2024 numbers they jumped from

The IC3 report for 2025, released on 6 April 2026, classifies financial loss from a real estate investment or fraud involving rental or timeshare property as real estate fraud. The reported figures for that category:

2025: 12,368 complaints, $275,110,419 in losses.
2024: 9,359 complaints, $173,586,820 in losses.
2023: 9,521 complaints, roughly $145 million in losses.
2022: 11,727 complaints, $397 million in losses (the peak year on record).

The 2024 to 2025 jump, from $173.5 million to $275.1 million, is a 58 percent increase in a single year. Persons in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s submitted an equal share of the reports, which is the part that is uncomfortable, because rental fraud is not an age-bucket problem.

The tells that take five minutes

Five checks. None of them take long, and the order matters.

Search the address with the owner name. Type the property address into a search engine alongside the name of the property owner or management company. If other ads come up for the same address but with a different owner, the listing is either being re-shared or it is stolen. Go to the management company own website and confirm the property is listed there. If it is not, the ad you found is almost certainly a copy.

Reverse image search the photos. If the listing is lifted from somewhere else, the photos will turn up on the original listing. A reverse image search on a desktop browser takes seconds. If the same kitchen appears on three different rentals in three different states, you are looking at a stolen image set.

Pressure to send money before touring is the whole point. The FTC specific warning on this is: if anyone pressures you to make a decision quickly, walk away. A landlord who will not let you tour the property, who has a story about why you cannot visit, or who says the deposit must be paid today to hold the unit, is selling you a payment, not a rental.

The deposit method is the receipt. Zelle, Venmo, wire transfer, gift cards and cryptocurrency are all ways to move money that are hard or impossible to reverse once they clear. A genuine landlord takes a cashier check or a bank transfer to a known account, and gives you a lease in writing first.

If the home is listed for sale, it is not for rent. The FTC names this as a red flag in the same warning. A property that is on the market to buy is not also available to rent, and an ad that says it is, with a separate contact number for the rental side, is the version where the photos and the address are real but the rental side is made up.

What the deposit actually pays for

The deposits are the obvious loss, and they are the loss the news covers. They are also the smaller half. The larger half is what the listing collects before any money changes hands.

Application-stage scams ask for Social Security numbers, dates of birth, driver licence photos, paystubs and bank statements. The FTC exact phrasing is that this information might then be used to steal your identity. The version people describe in complaints is duller than the term identity theft suggests: an account is opened in your name, a tax return is filed in your name, or a credit card is taken out. None of those things surface the day you handed the data over.

Why Zelle and Venmo deposits are usually gone

The reason a Zelle deposit to a stranger is hard to recover is the same reason a credit card charge is recoverable, which is the category the transfer falls into under federal law.

Regulation E protects you against unauthorised electronic fund transfers, meaning someone got into your account and moved money without you knowing. Those transfers are reimbursable, subject to liability caps and time limits. But if you pressed send yourself, even after forty minutes of expert lying, the transfer is authorised, and Regulation E does not require the bank to give it back.

Since 30 June 2023, Early Warning Services, which runs Zelle, has required participating banks and credit unions to reimburse customers for qualifying impostor scams, using a clawback against the receiving account. The qualifying criteria are not published, so it is not knowable in advance whether a given case counts. Venmo Purchase Protection covers goods and services payments, not friends-and-family payments. A wire transfer is like sending cash. A gift card is cash. Cryptocurrency, once sent, does not come back.

The version with a video tour that looks convincing

The mechanism has moved on from photographs. A Fox News account from August 2026 describes a renter in Southern California who found a two-bedroom bungalow near family. The supposed landlord said the current occupants had not moved out, so he could not tour it. He sent a professional video walkthrough instead. The video was convincing because it was real. It had been lifted from an earlier property listing. After collecting an application fee, the fake landlord requested a deposit through Zelle, said the deposit was refundable, and promised receipts. She sent more than $2,500. When she asked for it back, the calls stopped and the actual homeowner said she had never offered the property for rent.

The AI note in the IC3 2025 report matters here. The report says AI technology enables the creation of convincing synthetic content, such as social media profiles and personalised conversations, often in mass quantities. A video tour you cannot independently verify is no longer a guarantee that anything is real.

What a genuine rental application looks like

For comparison, a real rental looks like this. You visit the property, in person. The landlord or property manager meets you there, or has a verified representative do so. You are given a copy of the lease to read, with the actual property address on it, the actual deposit amount, the actual move-in date. The lease names the person or company receiving the deposit, with their real-world entity and bank. You pay by cashier check or by ACH transfer to a named account at a named bank, and you get a receipt.

None of those steps require rushing. None of them happen on a video call with someone you cannot place on a map. None of them end with you sending a gift card number over the phone.

If you already sent the deposit

Call your bank fraud line using the number on your card. Use the phrase unauthorised transaction only if no one talked you into sending it. If someone did talk you into it, say so, and ask directly whether your bank participates in the Zelle impostor scam reimbursement programme. Open a written claim either way, because the paper record is what starts the timelines above.

If you handed over personal information rather than money, the to-do list is different. Treat the data as exposed. The FTC recommends a free credit freeze at the three nationwide bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion), a fraud alert, and an Identity Theft Report at IdentityTheft.gov if the misuse becomes concrete.

Where to report a fake rental listing

Three places, in this order.

Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, even if you did not lose money. The report becomes part of the national count that produces figures like the $275.1 million line above.

Report it to the FBI at ic3.gov. Rental fraud is part of IC3 annual real estate fraud total, and the bureau uses the counts to publish the warnings that news outlets cover.

Report it to the platform where you found the listing. Zillow, Apartments.com, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist all have dedicated reporting flows. Reporting the listing reduces the next victim chance of finding it.

The one habit that prevents most of it

Tour the property before you send money. Not a video tour, not a curated photo set, not a walkthrough your cousin did on your behalf. Stand in the hallway, look at the kitchen, look at the bathroom, check the hot water pressure, look out of the window. If the landlord cannot make that happen, the listing is not a listing, it is a payment request.

This is general safety information, not legal advice. Scams change. If you need an official desk: FTC ReportFraud or IC3.