The flat listing sounds normal: photos, an address, the price in the text is not the main thing, but they ask for a deposit before the viewing. The owner is “already in another city”, a courier will hand over the key, the hold will burn in an hour. The card in the message is already ready.
A deposit before you have seen the flat and the person who controls it is a common loss. Do not send the transfer. Do not throw a passport and a photo of the card into the listing chat. A recipe for “how to transfer correctly so they return it” does not help here: do not transfer at all until you have been on site and understood whom you are talking to.
What happens
A photo of a flat is easy to take from someone else’s listing. Anyone can write the text. They rush you with a hold, because a pause for a viewing breaks the scheme. A real viewing can be scheduled. A refusal to let you into the flat before money is a reason to look for another listing, not a reason to pay faster.
A deposit makes sense only when you have seen the home and you understand whom you are giving the money to: a person at the door, with documents you can match calmly, not in a messenger in five minutes. I am not writing out how to fill in a transfer and which words to put in the payment note. That is exactly what feeds the hurry. Until there is a viewing, there is no payment to label.
A link “to a contract” can open as a page, not as a file. Do not open it, and do not enter a card there. A contract, if there ever is one, is looked at after the viewing, not instead of it. Do not send a bank code into the landlord’s chat. The owner does not need a code to open the door.
A request to send a passport “for the hold” before the visit hands your documents to a stranger. Do not send it. A selfie with the passport even less. An identity check that you arranged looks different: you yourself came to the address from the listing and see whether the entrance exists. An address that is not there, or a flat where other people live and have not heard of any rental, closes the question without a transfer.
If the money has already gone, do not make a second transfer “for hold insurance”. Keep the chat and the receipt, and call the bank on the number on the back of the card. Do not send anything else into the chat. A refund through the same card in the same chat usually turns out to be another transfer in the same direction.
How to view a flat without a deposit in advance
Set a time and go. Take a person with you. Do not pay on the stairs before you are inside and have talked. Open the listing on the platform yourself, not only the chat that wrote to you first. If that listing is already gone from the platform, and the chat still asks for a deposit, do not pay even more so.
The price in the listing can be anything. The point is not whether it is expensive or cheap. The point is that the money leaves before you have seen the home and the owner. Skip an option that is too convenient and has no viewing.
A voice note that says “I am the owner, I am on a trip, the neighbor has the key” does not replace the entrance. Do not hand cash to the neighbor before the viewing either. Ask to be shown the flat today. A refusal while the listing is still live means there is nothing to see. Do not talk yourself into thinking the deposit is small and you will not miss it: a small amount is just as unlikely to come back, and you may already have sent documents.
If a person you know sent the listing with “look, maybe you will take it”, still do not pay them onto a card before the visit. They may not have checked the photos themselves. Go together. A shared trip costs less than a transfer to a stranger who is not at the address.
Do not pick up keys “from the entrance guard after the transfer”. A guard does not become the owner of the flat because the chat says so. Until you are inside and you understand who is renting the home, the wallet stays closed. A hurry with a taxi to the address is not a reason to pay the hold on the way.
What to check, in order
- Do not transfer a deposit until you have seen the flat and the person who controls it.
- Do not send a passport, a selfie, and a photo of the card into the listing chat.
- Do not open a link to a “contract” and do not enter a card there. Do not put a bank code into the chat.
- Go to the address yourself. If there is no such entrance, or the residents are not renting the flat, close the conversation.
- Find the listing on the platform yourself, not only in a private chat. If it vanished from the platform and is still alive in the chat, do not pay.
- Do not make a second transfer if the first one already left. Call the bank from the back of the card.
- Do not listen to instructions on how to label the payment so it will “definitely be returned”. Until the viewing, there is no payment.
- Do not give the door and the money to a courier with a key before payment and before the viewing.
Where people usually go wrong
- They pay because “the flat will be taken in an hour”.
- They trust the photos and do not go to the address.
- They send a passport before the first meeting.
- They open a contract from a link and enter a card.
- They make a second transfer when the first one is promised back.
Do not transfer a deposit before you view the flat and meet the owner. Do not send a passport or a bank code into the listing chat. First the address, and a live conversation on site.
What to do today
If they ask you for a deposit before the visit, do not pay and do not send documents. Go to the address, or set the listing aside. If the transfer already left, stop, do not send a second amount, and call the bank on the number from the card. Do not open the link from the chat again.
A prepayment to a stranger before a meeting is risky in other listings too. A shop you have not seen is checked separately: how to check an online shop.
