In recent years, Spain has undergone important changes in the real estate market. Due to multiple factors, in big cities like Madrid and Barcelona renting a home can be complicated. The renting prices have rose and it has become more difficult to rent a house.

The internet, mobile phone applications and specialised pages, have found a spot in the market and have become the main way people find their homes.

As the internet page fotocasa mentions, the internet helps the consumers in their search for a new home. Although, it also increases the possibility of fraud. The web page idealista points out that these types of frauds can happen in any web page around the world. In Spain, they can be very common in the biggest cities, with apartments found in the best location and with a unbeatable price.

Do not believe everything you find in the internet. “Incredible apartment for rent in Calle Mayor, 95 square meters, 2 bedrooms, parking spot included, modern decoration and furnished. 700€/month.” Followed by a series of perfect photographs that show your ideal apartment for a great price. This description should make you think almost immediately, that it is a scam. However, the desire to find an apartment will make us believe it, it is only when the “landlord” sends you a long email with a lot of personal details, mentions that they are out of Spain and that it is possible to reserve the apartment, as long as you pay and do a wire transfer.

According to pisos .com, the scam of finding extremely cheap apartments is still used and common. Nonetheless, the scammers have realized that some ads are too obvious, so they have changed their way of doing it. Now they post ads of apartments, with average prices and normal pictures of the house. The platform, advises to be careful, investigate and be informed on the current real estate market.

It is important to not doing any wire transfer or send personal information and documents before visiting the apartment. If it is a real estate agency, please confirm that it exists. If it is a long-term rental, someone must show you beforehand the apartment. The payments of the deposits, must be found in the lease agreement and in case of doubts, you can ask for a property registry to see who is the owner of the apartment that is being rented.

In the case of temporary rentals, Airbnb alerts that there are scammers that will create emails and false web pages with a similar design to the Airbnb one, changing small details of it that might not be seen to the consumer. Their aim is to get personal information on the consumer, like passwords o bank account details. These types of identity spoofing are called phishing.

All the webpages that publish ads of houses and a<apartments to sell or rent for long or short stay will have their methods to report possible scams. If you think an ad is a scam, notify them, they are the most interested in deleting these scams.

If you have suffered any type of scam, you can report it in:

• The closest police station, in the technology research brigade, that works everyday in order to eradicate this and other offences committed in the internet.
• In the internet, in the  Grupo de delitos telemáticos de la Guardia Civil.