how common are rental scams
how common rental scams are, read off public data, is a story with two honest halves: they are widespread, and the numbers we have undercount them. the anchor here is a renter survey published by apartment list, attributed to them as a vendor source, and a federal trade commission report corroborates the shape from a different angle. the qualifier comes first, because it governs every number below: the survey is a non-probability online poll, and the ftc figures are reported cases only, so these describe scale and direction, not a precise national incidence rate. this is abstract, evergreen safety information — no case, no victim, no suspect, just the data and what it does and does not support.
how often do renters run into a scam at all
often, and that is the number that should reset your baseline. according to apartment list's 2018 renter survey, 43.1% of renters reported encountering a listing they suspected was fraudulent — so a suspected scam is closer to the norm than the exception in a rental search. the costlier, smaller slice is the one to design around: 6.4% of renters reported actually losing money to a rental scam. the gap between those two numbers is the whole game. it is where the red flags and the do-not-pay-before-viewing rules do their work — most people who hit a scam recognize it before any money moves, and the goal of everything downstream is to stay in that larger group.
Source: Apartment List, 'The Rental Listing Scam: A Million Dollar Industry' (Bennet & Popov, 2018).
when people do lose money, how much
usually about a deposit — but a meaningful tail loses far more. in the apartment list survey, among the renters who lost money the median loss was around $400, roughly the size of an application fee or a partial deposit. that is the typical case, and it fits how these scams are designed: take a deposit-sized payment from many people rather than a fortune from one. the part not to skim past is the tail: 31.3% of those who lost money lost more than $1,000. so "the typical loss is small" and "a third of victims lost over a thousand dollars" are both true at once, and the second is why the encounter rate above is worth taking seriously rather than waving off.
| among those who lost money | value |
|---|---|
| median loss | ~$400 |
| share who lost more than $1,000 | 31.3% |
Table: among renters who lost money to a rental scam, the median loss was around $400 and 31.3% lost more than $1,000 (Apartment List 2018).
Source: Apartment List, 'The Rental Listing Scam: A Million Dollar Industry' (2018).
the federal trade commission's data corroborates that the dollars are real at national scale. according to its december 2025 data spotlight, consumers reported nearly 65,000 rental scams to the consumer sentinel network from january 2020 through june 2025, totaling about $65 million in reported losses, with a median reported loss of $1,000 — higher than the survey's $400, because it is a different population (people who filed a fraud report) over a different period. we cite those directly from the named release; we do not average the two sources into one, because they measure different things.
who gets hit hardest
younger renters — and the two datasets agree on it from different angles. the apartment list survey found the share who lost money rose from 6.4% of renters overall to 9.1% among 18-to-29-year-olds. the ftc found the same skew in its own reports: people ages 18 to 29 were three times more likely than other adults to report losing money to a rental scam (from reports july 2024 through june 2025). the likely driver is exposure rather than gullibility — younger renters move more often, search and apply online more, and have the least experience with how a legitimate rental process is supposed to feel, which is exactly the inexperience a scam's urgency exploits.
Sources: Apartment List (2018); FTC Data Spotlight (December 2025).
why the two sources do not give the same number
because they measure different things, over different years, with different methods — and that is the honest caveat on all of it. the apartment list figures (43.1% encountered, 6.4% lost money, median around $400, 31.3% of those losing more than $1,000) come from a non-probability online survey of renters in 2018, so they describe the people who took that survey, not a random national sample. the ftc figures ($65 million, median $1,000) are a tally of fraud reports filed with a government network from 2020 through mid-2025, so they capture only cases someone bothered to report — and the agency itself notes most fraud is never reported, which means the real total is higher than $65 million. neither is a clean national incidence rate, and they should not be averaged into one. the defensible reading is the one both support: rental scams are common, the losses are real and skew young, and whatever the precise rate, it is higher than what gets reported.
what the data says to actually do
the data does not change the playbook — it explains why the playbook works. the single behavior that separates the renters who walk away from the 6.4% who lose money is refusing to pay before verifying: never send a deposit, fee, or first month before you have seen the place in person or on a live video walkthrough and confirmed the person controls it, and never send it by wire, crypto, gift card, or a payment app to a stranger, because those cannot be reversed. the full red-flag checklist — the overpayment scam, the too-good price, the person who will not meet — is in how to spot a roommate scam, and verifying a roommate is real covers confirming a real person is behind an account. the numbers here are the reason those rules exist: the scam is built to get your money moving before your suspicion catches up, and the only reliable counter is to make the money wait for the verification.
data as of Apartment List renter survey 2018; FTC reports January 2020–June 2025 (Data Spotlight, December 2025)
two public sources anchor this piece, and nothing here is modeled or estimated by us. the encounter rate (43.1%), the loss rate (6.4%, rising to 9.1% among 18–29-year-olds), and the loss sizes (median ~$400, 31.3% over $1,000) are reported by apartment list from a renter survey in its 2018 analysis "the rental listing scam: a million dollar industry" — a vendor source, attributed as such, drawn from a non-probability online survey of renters who self-reported their experience. the national-scale corroboration (nearly 65,000 reports, ~$65 million in reported losses, median reported loss $1,000, 18–29-year-olds three times more likely to report a loss) comes directly from the federal trade commission's december 2025 data spotlight, which tallies fraud reports to its consumer sentinel network. the two are cited side by side, not merged: they cover different years, methods, and populations, so they corroborate the shape of the problem without producing a single combined rate.
it can say, from public data, that rental scams are common (43.1% of renters in the apartment list survey reported encountering a suspected fraudulent listing) and costly (median loss around $400 for those who lost money, with 31.3% losing more than $1,000; about $65 million in total reported losses to the ftc), and that younger renters are disproportionately the ones who lose money (apartment list: 9.1% versus 6.4%; ftc: 18–29-year-olds three times more likely). it cannot give a precise national incidence rate: the apartment list figures are a non-probability online survey that describes its respondents, not the country, and the ftc figures are reported cases only and undercount by the agency's own note. it cannot establish a trend by combining the two — they are different methods, years, and populations and should not be merged. and it is descriptive: it says how common and how costly scams are, not which specific listing is one — that is what the red flags and the do-not-pay-before-viewing rule are for.