WATCH OUT: Expats who want to rent an apartment in Geneva often get scammed!

Expats in Geneva who would like to rent an apartment are often victims of housing scammers. The fact that expats in Geneva who are new to the city often do not know how the housing market works, makes them an easy target for scammers. Scammers advertise fake apartments to rent, ask for a pre-payment in order to send you the keys and then suddenly stop communicating with you. Learn how to avoid them.

Only use trackable payment methods in order to pay the first rent or a rental deposit!

Never pay a deposit over Western Union, PayPal or a similar methods of payment. Scammers often ask to pay the first rent for an apartment to rent in Geneva in advance – so you would be able to reserve the apartment. This is very unusual, a serious landlord will ask you to make a bank transfer to a blocked account. Most probably after you signed the the contract to rent your apartment in Geneva. Expats who are new to Geneva often do not know that and fall for it.

If an apartment to rent in Geneva sounds extremely good, it’s probably a fake!

If you are an expat in Geneva looking for an apartment to rent, do your homework: Research how much the prices for the kind of apartment you are looking are and know that there are no dream offers. Apartment offers or flat shares which are well under the usual prices of similar apartments to rent in Geneva are most definitely scams.

The landlord is out of town and cannot show you the apartment to rent in Geneva in person?

Fake! In most of the cases people will show you the apartments personally. If someone pretends to be an expat in Geneva who is currently abroad and needs you to pay first so he or she can send you the keys, it’s almost for sure a scammer.

Flatsforexpats.com does not have many scam ads because I check all of them and recognise most of them. Please, if you see any suspicious ads, contact me immediately so I can check them! Thanks for your help!