Click Here And Learn How To Avoid Scams Online
It's not easy to find an apartment in Germany, but it is depressingly easy to fall for a scam. Here's the most common one, and how to avoid it.
Music:
"Style Funk" and "Hot Swing"
by Kevin MacLeod
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Rewboss
Postfach 10 06 29
63704 Aschaffenburg
Germany
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My simple and basic principle is, no tour around the apartment, no money. LOL.
Also, you also want to carefully read the description, especially about the rent (Miete), Nebenkosten, etc.
There are many nice ones, but they can demand a considerable commission fee because the advert is managed by a property agent.
+123 321 so glad to hear it. was this changed recently?
Ein wirklich aussagekräftiges Video. Weiter so!
Is… is that really a problem? I mean, are there really people who think it’s a good idea to pay something before you have any kind of information or a legal agreement for the object of interest? o.O
I can hardly imagine.
+FloydMcRyan7 Yes, is the short answer to that.
+FloydMcRyan7 There is one thing that is endless, and that is the stupidity on people.
Believe me, I study law and the cases you hear, sometimes you have the feeling that you want to smash your head against a wall that people beliefed that. Because of this gullibility of people, we have laws to protect them from this kind of scam. And don’t believe that you are invulnerable, too. A lot of people doing this kind of stuff are really good in messing with peoples mind, so that in the end they believe everything.
+rewboss Well, if they’re that dumb they deserve to loose their money.
Someone offered me a room like this before… but the pictures looked like an American flat, not likely to be found in Regensburg. So I reverse-searched them and found out they were actually taken from a Swedish design studio.
I never heard that happening in Germany. And I cannot see anyone falling for that, even if only because Germans can’t speak proper english and won’t trust a foreigner on the phone.
When someone wants to make you transferring money via Western Union, it is most likely fraud. Very simple rule.
+eltfell Very well said! My personal rule: Use WU only to send money to people you know!
lithiumdeuterid actually Western Union is a terrible idea even for sending money to people you know. Their rates are higher than most competitors. Their only saving grace is that they are very close to everywhere on earth. But with more and more stuff on the Internet, this is less and less relevant
+Jesus Gonzalez Indeed. And if you truly know the recipient, it shouldn’t be a problem for them to give their bank account number – after all, using only the bank registration number and account number, it’s not possible to withdraw money from someone else’s bank account, only to deposit money into it. UNLESS it’s a VERY shady bank of course, but any “big” bank certainly don’t allow it.
Imagine someine trying to actually rent sell a flat like this (with giving keys, so no criminal) and wonders why no one wants it
Excellent video! Unfortunately, this type of scam goes on all over the world, and people do fall for such things. I have a friend who was scammed out of $5,000 by some clown who claimed he was from the IRS (US govt) and was going to have him deported unless he paid the money in a similar way through Western Union. He was an immigrant, and had just received his citizenship, but was so scared, he wired the crook his money. It is so sad when people get hurt by these crooks!
+restlesswikiinfo
You and I may know this, but my friend did not. That is the point. These scammers catch the unaware and victimize them. People believe the most amazing things and I know several immigrants/became citizens who are completely safe yet they are terrified that they can and will be deported because of the lies politicians tell on TV.
They don’t call anyone to check because they are afraid that will “flag” them with these agencies.
They are given the fear that the IRS and INS are “out to get them”.
They didn’t grow up here, this society is new to them, and they don”t understand all of how it works, only the lies they have been told. The scammers know this and prey upon it.
Paying in cash is perfectly acceptable though. Not every landlord is ok with it, but some are. I’ve never heared about a landlord demanding cash, but I myself and many other people I know have paid their rent or their deposit in cash. I don’t know the legal status, but the law and what people are doing are sometimes two different things.
+TheKlaun9 You certainly can pay in cash. But direct bank transfer means you automatically have a record of the payment in case of any dispute, and the landlord has to give you his bank account number, extra peace of mind for you because you know he’s not going to just vanish without trace.
+rewboss Oh ok, so it’s advice not the law (or a mistake). I might delete my comment tomorrow then. Misunderstandings …
+TheKlaun9 Don’t delete it, because it is a valid comment. Yes, paying cash is a reasonable way to do it, *if* you have signed the contract *and* have gotten the keys, *and* have checked the landlord’s identity (like: Does the name on the passport match the sign on the doorbell/mailbox, is this actually the owner of the apartment, do you get to see an authentic utilities statement for this apartment, with matching numbers, and so on).
+restlesswikiinfo Not my problem tbo
It is really interesting to see how you anwer a request on reddit and than the problem that was discussed there will come a few days later into a video here. It is the first time that I saw that and it made me smile.
By the way: Good video 😉
Looks like +Wanted Adventure and you were thinking about the same things this week. She just posted a video about the troubles of getting an apartment in Germany. Luckily, I didn’t have this issue. My apartment in Berlin was only for 1 month and was taken care of by the university. It wasn’t a great place, but it was included in the scholarship, so I didn’t complain.
I thought this has long been embedded into common sense already
Yara Nemeh You’d be surprised by how uncommon ‘common sense’ really is!
There is a saying: If it sounds too good to be true it is probably not true.
One particular incident in Munich got lot of attention and intense discussion recently.
A realtor or rental agent added €30 fee for housing inspection (Gebühr für Wohnungsbesichtigung) to cover the transportation cost and expense allowance (Fahrkosten- und Aufwandsentschädigung). It must be paid first before the people can visit and inspect the housing.
According to many sources, this practice is not legal in Germany, yet some people aren’t aware of this rip-off.
This is literally, word by word, what happened to me. Thank God i saw this video before going through with the deposit.
From having looked for flats in both Germany (in Aachen, which is notoriously short on flats due to the 50,000 students there) and the UK (in Oxford, so no comment) I have to say that I found this much more common in th UK. I haven’t encountered this a single time here, but when looking for something in Oxford, there were at least five or ten offers like that.
I guess it’s more of a general scam scheme. Of course, it’s much more dangerous in the UK, because I reply in English won’t raise immediate suspicion.
I had an acquaintance who lived in London for a while. She saw an add for a furnished apartment and contacted the owner, and then met with him and saw the place. Turns out; he wasn’t the owner, but just had the keys to the place and knew when the real owner wouldn’t be there.
The mere mention of Western Union should raise a few red flags on its own! W.U. has been used quite a lot in recent years by scammers for all sorts of nefarious purposes.
In Belgium, rental deposits have to be transferred to a blocked account in your name, you won’t be able to get your money back without the consent of the owner, but you can’t loose it when the owner files for bankruptcy. This is true for all rentals where you will be living officially, so not for most student rooms, unfortunately.
You can do that in Germany too and it’s the normal way. But you can also just give the deposit to the landlord. It’s a risk, but quicker.
https://youtu.be/H0S00UzMfaY