Zürich has such a big problem with apartment fraud that the police has a specific department working on just this.
I have first hand experience with a similar fraud in Zürich. I had an apartment which I looked for a new tenant to. During my search there was a ”woman” that contacted me and said that she was interested. She behaved really weirdly and couldn’t come on the showing, but requested some videos. I didn’t think more about it and send over a ”digital showing” where I showed certain parts of the apartment. We later found a new tenant and she moved in. I didn’t think more about it.
Fast forward 3 months and a random man knocks on my door during the morning. He asked if I was <insert my name>, and I said yes. He then asked if I rented out the apartment above (which was my old apartment). After explaining that we’d already found a tenant for it, he just said: ”F*ck, then I‘ve been scammed“.
It turned out that this strange ”woman” actually just used me as one side of their scam, getting credible videos where I talked and showed the apartment. The scammers then used all my ad pictures, my name and address to put up a fake ad.
He moved from Austria and paid ~2000 euro in deposit, then arrived to an apartment that was already rented out. He showed me a fradulent contract and my videos I previously sent.
After all of this, I did an image search using my apartment pictures, and found and took down 3 fake listings on different websites.
Zurich police can do nothing as scammers don't live in or ever go to Switzerland
Account holder: Angel Ortiz Pulido
IBAN: ES95 1465 0100 9517 7489 8595
Bank: ING Bank Spain (BIC INGDESMMXXX)
That's the only relevant part of the report. Authorities can actually go after whoever opened the account at that bank, even with fake credentials, they have the fingerprint, picture, etc. The guy is just waiting for some money to enter that account to move it to another and launder it. Police can just deposit 4700 euros and wait for the guy to move a finger.
I gave up after a couple of paragraphs... somewhat related, when we were renters we came across at times landlords that wouldn't rent to Americans. They didn't hide - they'd just say they don't rent to Americans.
I think it's because we have different expectations - when you move out of a place here it has to be the same exact condition as when you moved in which means you have to pay to have it painted, get the carpets cleaned, have the oven, etc inspected and maintained... also, you have to bring your own ceiling light fixtures so you remove those too.
There's a whole industry of cleaning companies that handle you moving out.
I don’t think those things are a matter of expectations - those are clearly written in the contract that you sign. I believe not renting to Americans is about something else.
It seems the number one way to detect a scam is "if it's too good to be true, it probably is." I wonder when scammers will just pick a reasonable market price. Lots of people are renting market price apartments, after all.
Under market prices are very effective tool to encourage fear of missing out. At near market rates lot more people would consider it over longer period. Low price leads to wanting the dealt to be done and locked.
I'm sure there are scams that are more subtle, but it's a numbers game and "too good to be true" offers select for the people who are desperate and/or not too sharp.
"AI-generated copy that says a lot and commits to nothing." Haha.
Seriously, it's nice that Kimi did the investigation, and it's good that that's disclosed at the end (would be better at the top). But please, do a pass of human review for the most grating inconsistencies and style issues.
Zürich has such a big problem with apartment fraud that the police has a specific department working on just this.
I have first hand experience with a similar fraud in Zürich. I had an apartment which I looked for a new tenant to. During my search there was a ”woman” that contacted me and said that she was interested. She behaved really weirdly and couldn’t come on the showing, but requested some videos. I didn’t think more about it and send over a ”digital showing” where I showed certain parts of the apartment. We later found a new tenant and she moved in. I didn’t think more about it.
Fast forward 3 months and a random man knocks on my door during the morning. He asked if I was <insert my name>, and I said yes. He then asked if I rented out the apartment above (which was my old apartment). After explaining that we’d already found a tenant for it, he just said: ”F*ck, then I‘ve been scammed“.
It turned out that this strange ”woman” actually just used me as one side of their scam, getting credible videos where I talked and showed the apartment. The scammers then used all my ad pictures, my name and address to put up a fake ad.
He moved from Austria and paid ~2000 euro in deposit, then arrived to an apartment that was already rented out. He showed me a fradulent contract and my videos I previously sent.
After all of this, I did an image search using my apartment pictures, and found and took down 3 fake listings on different websites.
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Zurich police can do nothing as scammers don't live in or ever go to Switzerland
That's the only relevant part of the report. Authorities can actually go after whoever opened the account at that bank, even with fake credentials, they have the fingerprint, picture, etc. The guy is just waiting for some money to enter that account to move it to another and launder it. Police can just deposit 4700 euros and wait for the guy to move a finger.I flagged this. I don't think we need to doxx people here, it's enough that the featured article does so.
I gave up after a couple of paragraphs... somewhat related, when we were renters we came across at times landlords that wouldn't rent to Americans. They didn't hide - they'd just say they don't rent to Americans.
I think it's because we have different expectations - when you move out of a place here it has to be the same exact condition as when you moved in which means you have to pay to have it painted, get the carpets cleaned, have the oven, etc inspected and maintained... also, you have to bring your own ceiling light fixtures so you remove those too.
There's a whole industry of cleaning companies that handle you moving out.
I don’t think those things are a matter of expectations - those are clearly written in the contract that you sign. I believe not renting to Americans is about something else.
Could have stopped at:
> Rent noticeably below market, with every utility included.
It seems the number one way to detect a scam is "if it's too good to be true, it probably is." I wonder when scammers will just pick a reasonable market price. Lots of people are renting market price apartments, after all.
Under market prices are very effective tool to encourage fear of missing out. At near market rates lot more people would consider it over longer period. Low price leads to wanting the dealt to be done and locked.
I'm sure there are scams that are more subtle, but it's a numbers game and "too good to be true" offers select for the people who are desperate and/or not too sharp.
Never use AI to write something primarily intended for other humans to read.
"AI-generated copy that says a lot and commits to nothing." Haha.
Seriously, it's nice that Kimi did the investigation, and it's good that that's disclosed at the end (would be better at the top). But please, do a pass of human review for the most grating inconsistencies and style issues.
The real rental market in Switzerland and Germany is indistinguishable from scam. Most of the times you are no going to rent anything anyway.
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At least they filtered out the emojis before posting