Scams are not clever. They are repetitive. Once you know the patterns, you'll see them coming from the first message.
Scroll the other listings in the same category and city. A price far below all of them is not luck. It is bait, designed to make you move fast and pay early. Nobody rents a good generator for a third of the going rate.
"Someone else is coming this evening." "Send something small now and I'll hold it." Pressure exists to stop you thinking. A genuine owner will happily wait a day. They want a renter who turns up, not one who panics.
Too perfect, catalogue lighting, a foreign number plate, snow in the background. Ask for a new photo taken right now with today's date written on a piece of paper next to the item. A real owner sends it in two minutes. A thief goes quiet.
Moving to WhatsApp later is normal. Refusing to agree anything inside Veranda first is not. It removes the record, the reviews and the report button, which is exactly the point.
Ask for two minutes on a video call with the item in shot. It is a small request and it ends most of these conversations on its own.
Real owners are happy to answer questions. If asking one makes them impatient, you already have your answer.
The two patterns we see most: an "advance to secure the house" for a property nobody has visited, and a caller claiming to be from an operator or from Veranda asking you to confirm a code. Both end the same way.
If someone claims to work for us, hang up and write to us at support@verandamarkets.com instead.
Reporting takes a minute and it protects the next person, who might not have read this page. We read every report.
Report a listing or user