Scammers are flooding TikTok and Facebook with bogus rental listings this summer, stealing pictures of real Dutch homes and pocketing deposits from house-hunters who never get a key.
Landlords in Groningen say the fraud spikes every summer, right when students and recent graduates scramble to find new accommodation.
As reported by RTV Noord, the fake ads are now getting harder and harder to spot, largely thanks to developments in AI (which writes flawless Dutch and English on the scammers’ behalf).
How these scams actually work
Fraudsters steal photos and property details straight from a legitimate landlord’s website, then repost them as their own ad. The bait tends to be a suspiciously low price on a “beautiful, spacious apartment”, in a central or attractive region.
Groningen real estate agency Gruno Verhuur flagged one such example to RTV: A home the company genuinely lists for €1,500 a month (with a €1,500 deposit) was reposted by scammers at €1,000 rent, but with a €2,000 deposit demanded upfront.
Once you message them, the tone turns pushy fast. They send bank details to prospective renters, insist on payment before any viewing, and brush off questions with lines like “after payment” or by suggesting you stop wasting their time.
And, with a rampant housing crisis, many renters in the Netherlands are unlikely to push back.
“For years, there have been fake advertisements and fake websites taking over our listings, where you have to pay if you want to register,” a spokesperson of housing association Lefier tells RTV. “We see that people are profiting from the tight housing supply.”
Internationals get hit the hardest
If you’re moving to the Netherlands from abroad, you often can’t pop round for a viewing before you commit. Scammers are well aware of this, and they capitalise on your need to lock something in from afar.
Gruno Verhuur’s co-owner Johannes Bruining tells RTV that he has seen the fallout in person: “A few years ago, we received calls from one of our tenants. People with suitcases were standing at their doors claiming they had rented that property. That wasn’t the case.”
Thankfully, the company managed to house those particular victims in spare furnished flats, but that’s a rare stroke of good luck. Most internationals caught up in these scams simply lose their money and their would-be home in one go.
And, while expats may have more funds at their disposal, international students often have their hands tied. Most want to find housing before their term starts, adding to the desperation.
READ MORE | 10 creative solutions to the Dutch student housing crisis that make us say “Why didn’t we think of that?”
“They cannot yet view properties from their own country and want to be assured of one, so they transfer money in advance,” Bruining continues.
“Some students have already sent dozens of responses and are happy that they finally have an advertisement where they can rent something.”
Why are these scams so hard to stop?
Reporting an account barely helps, because, as Bruining puts it, a fresh profile can pop up ten minutes after the old one is taken down.
Calling the police tends to lead nowhere either, since the fake identities vanish the moment they’re flagged. Housing association Lefier looked into the legal options and found little could be done, according to spokesperson Eefje Kuiper.
The old giveaway of clumsy, error-ridden Dutch is also fading. Sophie van der Zee, a fraud researcher at the Erasmus School of Economics who has studied rental scams in the UK, notes that AI can now churn out convincing text in any language.
“Someone can now have perfect texts generated in all languages specifically created to persuade people,” van der Zee tells RTV Oost. “It could very well be that the person behind the TikTok account is located somewhere abroad.”
Here’s how to protect yourself (and your funds!)
Van der Zee suggests a quick reverse image search: right-click the listing photos and look them up online. (Google Lens is great for this!) If the same shots appear on a real estate agent’s page, you’ve found the original and confirmed that the listing is bogus.
Her second rule is to trust your gut: “If you see a super beautiful and spacious apartment for 800 euros, that is often ‘too good to be true’.”
The safest option, landlords stress, is to only trust listings on a company’s official site, view before you pay, and never transfer a deposit before you’ve signed a contract and (ideally) have keys in hand.
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