When the apartment listing is too good to be trueSkip to content
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On 31 July 2026 my Immoscout24 alert surfaced a flat in Zürich, below market, all utilities included, available immediately. I applied. An hour later the listing was gone. Normal enough in this market, where advertisers pull ads once the applications bury them.<br>The reply came on Monday morning, and not from the agency. It was polite, fluent, and had an answer already prepared for every objection I could think of, including the one I was fairly sure had no good answer. They had two.<br>Methodology note<br>Everything below is a scambait. I was confident this was fraud from the first email and played along to see how far it went. I never sent money, and the reservation funnel was examined in a throwaway sandbox with no credentials and no browser sessions. All URLs, domains and email addresses are defanged. Do not visit them.<br>The lure<br>The flat was at Bristenstrasse 20, 8048 Zürich. The property is real: the photos were almost certainly lifted from a legitimate listing for that address, so reverse-image search would probably have returned a genuine apartment. The flat is real. The operator simply has no relationship with it.<br>The listing claimed to be managed by IMMOPRO gérance Béatrice Jotterand Sàrl, a real Swiss agency. The reply came from a private individual on a .de domain who then routed me to a third “agency” trading under a stolen industrial brand name, ThyssenKrupp Immobilien. All three names are the operator’s. Both real companies are borrowed props with no involvement beyond having their names used, and the names do not even match each other, which is the tell: recycled identities, not rotated between listings.<br>Nothing appears to stop this at the source. As far as I can tell, anyone can register on Immoscout24 and advertise under any agency name they like. The name on a listing is a string the advertiser typed, not a verified credential, so borrowing a real agency’s identity costs the operator nothing.<br>Three things were wrong with the price. Two of them were visible on the listing itself, at CHF 2,350/month all inclusive; the third only showed up once the reply arrived:<br>Electricity and internet were included. All-in Pauschalmiete pricing does exist, mostly for furnished lets, so “everything included” is not impossible by itself. Electricity is: in Zürich it is a contract in the tenant’s name with EWZ, not something a landlord bundles. Internet and TV are the same story.<br>A parking space in Zürich is its own market , routinely a few hundred francs a month, let separately because it is worth letting separately. Nobody throws one in for free.<br>The currency changed. On Immoscout24 the rent was CHF 2,350. By the time it reached the email and the payment page it was €2,350: same digits, currency symbol swapped, no conversion performed. Zürich rents are quoted in francs; a German-domiciled “agency” billing a Swiss flat in euros is a template built for another market and never localised.<br>The emails<br>Both were in German; translations below, originals collapsed under each. The wording is boilerplate, and searching a phrase from it is how many people discover they are being worked.
Email message (translated from German)<br>Hello,<br>Thank you for your message.<br>The apartment is available and ready for immediate occupancy. All utilities (heating, electricity, water, internet, TV and parking) are already included in the rent.<br>As I have moved permanently to Italy with my family due to some health problems, the letting is handled by the real estate agency ThyssenKrupp Immobilien. I am therefore unable to carry out viewings in person.<br>The process is simple:<br>You register on the agency's website and select a viewing appointment.<br>After confirmation you will receive all the documents, including the draft lease and the viewing authorisation.<br>Once the reservation has been completed, an employee of the letting agency will come by to show you the apartment on the date of your choosing.<br>For the reservation, the agency requires confirmation of payment of the first month's rent and the deposit. Until the lease is signed you can cancel the reservation at any time and receive the full amount back.<br>Very important: once you make the reservation, the apartment is reserved exclusively for you.<br>If you agree with this process, I will gladly send you the link to the apartment on the agency's website so that you can reserve it. There you can also see photos of the apartment and further details.<br>Kind regards
Original German textHallo,<br>Vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht.<br>Die Wohnung ist verfügbar und sofort bezugsfertig. Alle Nebenkosten (Heizung, Strom, Wasser, Internet, TV und Parkplatz) sind bereits in der Miete enthalten.<br>Da ich mit meiner Familie dauerhaft nach Italien gezogen bin aufgrund einiger gesundheitlicher Probleme, erfolgt die Vermietung über die Immobilienagentur...