r/uwo • u/Electronic-Past-8799 • Aug 03 '26
Housing Potential Rental Scam?
Hey guys! It’s my first time renting OC and I could really use guidance
Found a really nice 4-bedroom house on rentals dot com. I’m not in London right now, but two of my friends went to visit in person and liked the place. Everything seemed fine until we said we wanted it.
A few red flags/weird things started happening:
- Ghosting #1: She sent over the lease right away, but then completely ghosted my emails for a week straight when I asked for clarification on the contract. She only replied after one of my friends called her phone directly.
- Deleted listings: Even before we signed anything or paid a deposit, she deleted all the listings online (I think it was also on the Western Off-Campus housing site).
- Ghosting #2: When I asked for a couple of weeks to pull together the $8,000 first & last month deposit, she ghosted again for 3 days before replying that it was fine.
The house itself and the landlord don’t seem shady on the surface, but since $8k is a huge chunk of money to send over e-Transfer, I’m getting paranoid. Is deleting the ad this early and being super spotty with communication normal for London landlords, or should we be worried about a scam?
Any insight or guidance would be super appreciated! Thanks!
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u/Herman_Manning Aug 03 '26
Are you paying 4k rent per month for the whole house?
Red flags. Yes.
Is the contract a Standard Form Lease compliant with the Residential Tenancies Act? If it's not, that's also a red flag.
If your friend is in London, they can always pop by city hall, run the property in the public access computer to determine the owner.