Advice to avoid scams and attempted fraud on idealista

Attempts to defraud people in the property market are nothing new. Conmen and fraudsters always work where they think they’re more likely to find potential victims. As the internet has now become the biggest tool for finding and selling properties, the strategies of these criminals have evolved to take advantage of this channel. Furthermore, it’s all too easy to forget the most basic rules of internet safety when the rental and sales market is performing well.

At idealista, we have always valued the safety of our users and have developed a set of tools and measures to protect against the impact of possible criminal activity. We have a specialised quality assurance team that analyses each and every warning that our users send us about possible scams, whether through the property listings themselves, on Twitter or in any other way. We are also in permanent contact with the security forces to be able to prosecute these crimes.

There is no common pattern to attempted fraud. The list of all the different types of fraud is endless because criminals are forever inventing new ways to trick people. At idealista, we always try to appeal to our users' common sense to defend against this type of activity.

For example, if you are an owner who wants to advertise and sell your property, it is vital that you never provide your user login details or the validation code you receive by text message when you publish your listing. Anytime you reach a page where you have to enter your login information, make sure that you do so through a secure page, one whose web address begins with https://www.idealista.com/. Never trust any other website that doesn't start with this (adhering strictly to this rule can save you a lot of trouble).

Remember that online mafias and con artists are always improving and perfecting their techniques and new types of fraud are arising all the time. Here are the most common fraud attempts:

• You receive an email that at first looks like it’s from idealista asking you to click on a link to login or enter your email address, but the web address of that page is not idealista. This scam is aimed to collect your details and use them to place fraudulent listings on idealista, whether you are a private individual or a real estate agent.
• Be wary of listings that don’t let you communicate using the contact form but instead put a contact email in the comments or description. They probably want to take away from the idealista environment so that we won't be able to monitor things and warn you if we notice anything strange.
• After contacting an advertiser, you receive a call asking for a code that idealista has sent you by SMS and that you have received on your mobile. This is designed to make you activate a fraudulent listing using your phone number.
• The advertiser asks you to make a down payment through Airbnb. If this happens, you will probably lose your money. At idealista, we don't have any payment system or any such agreement with Airbnb or other third parties.
• The advertiser claims to be an estate agent who is certified by idealista. Don’t trust this because idealista doesn’t certify any advertisers. Sooner or later they will ask you for money and you will lose it for good.
• The advertiser says they aren’t available to show you the property and asks you for some money as a collateral so that you can get the key and see the property yourself. This is one of the most well-established types of fraud out there. If you're lucky enough to get a key in the ends, you can bet it won't open the door you want it to.
• A potential interested party offers you a large sum of money and all you have to do is pay the transfer fees. This is a classic scam: you give them the money but the supposed transfer of millions from some exotic country never arrives.
• You’re looking to sell your property and someone offers to pay you immediately in cash without even having visited it, or they want to make a deal in another city. They will try to make you believe if you just advance a payment to them, they will give you a briefcase full of banknotes (which you can be sure will be fake).
• You’re looking to rent out your property, a potential tenant offers to transfer the deposit to you immediately but the amount they transfer is more than the deposit amount. This type of fraud seems harmless because it doesn’t look like you going to lose any money. Once you receive the money, your conscience will force you to repay the excess amount by means of another transfer and ta-dah! You will have unwittingly taken part in money laundering and you will be subject to police action. If this happens to you, don't waste a single minute and report it to the police straight away, and don’t return the transfer yet. Otherwise, you will have a hard time getting out of a complicated legal procedure (and no, that so-called “tenant” will never turn up).

The best advice we can give you for dealing with attempted fraud is to always use your common sense. Never share your password with anyone and don’t use the same password for different websites; don’t make advance payments to anyone and always be suspicious of bargains. If you find a flat at a great price in the perfect area that seems too good to be true, it probably is!

If you do decide to contact a property that’s a real bargain, you should know that our quality control team checks each of these properties and if they suspect that a certain listing is an attempt at fraud, they will immediately remove it from the website.

If you have contacted the property using the contact form on the listing, our system will send you an email alerting you of the potential fraud right away, with the recommendation that you cut all contact.

As well as the technical and human effort we put in at idealista, we have a very good relationship with all the legal institutions and state security forces, although any help in this regard is still welcome. That's why we encourage you to report any listings you think are suspicious using the link in each one. We can assure you that we check every single report we receive, one by one, to help protect you from being defrauded.