How to avoid scam on the Internet

Unfortunately, some people become the victims of scam and fraud on the Internet. Follow our guidelines and avoid being scammed online!

Although it happens quite rarely, websites such as CasaSwap experience scam and fraud from time to time. While we do everything we can to avoid it - and take prompt action as soon as we learn about Internet scam and fraud attempts on our website, we can only provide members with some basic guidelines and good tips in order to avoid scam and fraud attempts.

First of all, please let us know about suspected scam and fraud attempts if you experience it - report the suspected profile with our "report profile" feature and we will investigate the matter immediately!

Here are some tips and advice to avoid becoming the victim on Internet scam and fraud:

• First and foremost: use your common sense. If something is too good to be true, it almost always is! If someone offers you a cheap apartment in a perfect location at a very low price, then beware!

• If you send money over the Internet, we always recommend that you use secure services such as PayPal - where you can reclaim the money if you do not get the service you pay for.

• We advice all members NEVER to transfer money (e.g. deposits, fees, rent, etc.) in advance via Western Union, MoneyGram or similar money transfer companies!

• We also recommend that you ask for a verified photo of the apartment/room that the other person claims to sublet: ask him/her to take a photo where they also document that they actually own the place by holding up a sign or a piece of paper with your name on it. Thereby, you can avoid fake photos.

• Also, we recommend that you use Skype to get to know each other better. You can have a face-to-face video-call and see the other person live. Scammers will often refuse to do this, and come up will all sorts of excuses.

• Keep the email correspondence on the CasaSwap website until you feel comfortable with the other person - a scammer will often ask you to send an email right away.

• If you are contacted by a landlord/HomeOwner who claims to have an apartment for you, always remember to carefully look at his/her profile: does the HomeOwner really have a room/apartment where you want to go? Often, scammers write a lot of mails to a lot of people, claiming they have a room/apartment. Always check the other persons profile carefully!

• Ask to see references and testimonials from other renters, get phone numbers, utility bills from the apartment, etc.

• Unfortunately, there is not a lot we can do once the scam and fraud has taken place. If you want to report it to the police, we will do everything we can to help you. We can give the police the IP-address of the fraud profile, however, this is not usually enough to catch the person behind the fake profile (since an IP-address can quite easily be hidden and/or falsified).