The Dutch student housing market is notoriously tight, and now, TikTok scammers are taking advantage of that.
Following an investigation by NOS Stories, it has become clear that the popular app is flooded with hundreds of fake student rooms scattered across the Netherlands.
And while you may be thinking “but who turns to TikTok to find a student room?”, allow us to draw your memory back to the time when we used Facebook for the same purpose.
Desperate students are being caught out by the scam, with some losing as much as three months’ rent.
What do these scams look like?
Unfortunately, these scams can be pretty convincing, because they use listings that actually do exist — on Pararius. Photos from real listings are being taken from their site and posted by “real estate agents” on TikTok.
The rental site has been experiencing people coming to them thinking they have successfully rented a room for quite a while.
And as Jasper de Groot of Pararius tells NOS, “We are completely fed up with it and want action from TikTok now.”
“A number of victims come to us,” De Groot says. “They think they are renting from us because they have transferred an amount. But that is not to us, but to a scammer.”
And it’s not the only site that has noticed this. Funda and Kamernet have also experienced a similar issue.
Kamernet is advising anyone who comes across these fake listings to report them to TikTok; should this not work, they may take legal action against the app.
How are they getting money from people?
While anyone who has gone through a legit real estate agency knows that you shouldn’t be required to send any money before even seeing the room, not everyone knows this.
The scammers tell interested students that in order for them to attend a viewing, they have to first secure their spot with some money.
Merel (19) tells NOS of how this happened to her. She found an €850 student room on TikTok. “Then I got an email back. We had to pay €150 for the viewing, and that money would then be refunded after the viewing, as a kind of real estate agent fee.”
Christof (19) tells a similar story to NOS. “My mother forwarded something,” he says. “I responded to it, and within five minutes I got a reply. The room was mine if I paid a reservation guarantee of €120.”
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Thankfully, both of the students realised something fishy was up and didn’t send the money, but not everyone is so fortunate.
According to NOS, the Fraud Help Desk has seen a jump in the number of reports of rental fraud. With just 21 recorded in the second half of 2025, compared with 175 in the first half of 2026.
Speaking with the NOS, Juliana Könning of the LSvB (National Student Union) warns people to watch out for the red flags:
“For example, if there is urgency behind the payment: you have to transfer the money today because there are other candidates. Or if someone keeps postponing the viewing but already wants the money.”
TikTok isn’t doing much about it
Prarius has been trying and failing to get TikTok to take action and remove the fake advertisements.
De Groot tells NOS, “We are doing everything we can to make this happen. We are sending the files containing the complaints from victims to TikTok, writing a registered letter, but TikTok is not cooperating.”
He says the rental platform will also take legal action against the app.
Meanwhile, when asked by NOS Stories, TikTok claims that it does remove scam posts. When the outlet shared a number of examples of these scam posts, they were indeed taken down. However, hundreds more continue to flood the popular social media platform.
TikTok did not explain why it has done nothing with the reports from Pararius.
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