Is this NYC apartment listing a scam?
Paste the listing below. We check it against patterns from NYPD, FTC, and StreetEasy rental-scam guidance — entirely in your browser.
Your text is analyzed in your browser and never sent to our servers.
Paste a listing to begin.
We'll scan the text for patterns common in rental scams. Nothing leaves your browser.
This tool flags patterns common in rental scams. It cannot verify a listing is safe, only that certain known patterns are present or absent. Always: view the unit in person, verify ownership through public records (HPD Online or ACRIS), and never send money via wire transfer, Zelle, Venmo, gift cards, or cryptocurrency. If something feels wrong, walk away — there will be other apartments.
About this tool
NYC apartment scams are a depressingly stable fixture of the rental market. The patterns haven't changed much in twenty years because they still work — tight inventory, desperate renters, and a market that rewards moving fast create the conditions a scammer needs. The most common payoff is a wire transfer or gift-card payment for a unit that doesn't exist, sent before the would-be tenant has set foot inside. The most common pretext is an out-of-country landlord who can't show the apartment.
This tool reads a pasted listing or message and checks it against a curated catalog of textual patterns drawn from NYPD, FTC, NY Department of State, and StreetEasy rental-scam guidance. It runs entirely in your browser — the listing text never leaves your device, isn't sent to our servers, and isn't stored anywhere. The output is a risk score plus a per-rule explanation showing which patterns fired and which authoritative source documents them.
What this tool is, and what it isn't
The scam checker is a pattern matcher, not a verification service. We can't confirm that a real apartment exists at a given address. We can't verify that the broker is licensed. We can't tell you that a landlord you've never met is real. What we can do is catch the textual patterns that appear over and over in scam corpora from the authoritative sources above.
Treat the verdict as a first-pass filter. A green "low risk" result doesn't guarantee the listing is real — it means the text doesn't match common scam patterns. The seller could still be running a different scam that doesn't use these textual tells, or the listing could simply be a more sophisticated version of the same trick. A red "high risk" result means the text matches enough patterns that the listing should be verified in person before any money or personal information changes hands.
The 2025 NYC FARE Act changed which patterns are suspicious
The NYC Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act took effect June 11, 2025, and changed which broker-fee patterns count as red flags. Under the FARE Act, a landlord or landlord's agent cannot impose or collect a broker's fee from a prospective tenant. A tenant only pays a broker's fee if the tenant hired the broker directly.
Two consequences for the catalog. First, "no fee" listings are now standard, not suspicious — pre-2025 anti-scam guides sometimes flagged "no fee" as a possible bait-and-switch, and that's stale. Second, a listing offering a "discount" for paying broker fees upfront is now itself a FARE Act violation and a fresh red flag we catch.
The other side of the legal context is the 2019 NY Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), which set hard statutory caps that double as scam signals: application fees can't exceed $20; security deposits can't exceed one month's rent; and the classic "first, last, and security" demand is illegal. A listing requesting any of these is breaking the law regardless of whether the lister is a scammer — we flag them either way because the user shouldn't engage.
Heuristics organized by category
The catalog has roughly 20 named heuristics organized into four categories. Each heuristic has an integer weight from 1 to 5 and traces back to at least one authoritative source.
Payment red flagsare the highest-weighted bucket. Real NYC landlords use checks, ACH via property management portals, or credit cards via Zillow / StreetEasy / Buildium. They don't use Western Union, MoneyGram, Bitcoin, gift cards, or any other irreversible payment rail. A listing demanding wire transfer or cryptocurrency is a weight-5 signal sourced from NYPD, FTC, and NY DOS consumer-protection guidance.
Communication red flagscover how the lister talks. "Out of country" landlord stories, urgency pressure ("must decide today"), explicit refusal of an in-person showing, and email-only contact all show up here. Each weighted to reflect false-positive risk: email-only contact is weight 2 (many legitimate StreetEasy/Zillow listings funnel contact through a web form), while explicit refusal of in-person viewing is weight 4 (rare for real landlords; common for scammers).
Listing-content red flagsinclude below-market rent (asking under 60% of the neighborhood's median 1-bedroom rent, sourced from our affordability tool's data), missing address or cross-streets, and price-context mismatch (luxury adjectives + bargain price). The 60% floor is intentionally conservative so ordinary good deals don't fire — only listings that don't make economic sense for the claimed unit do.
Process red flagscover how the lister proposes to actually transfer keys and paperwork. Promises to "mail the keys" rather than meet in person, unfamiliar escrow services, and requests for Social Security Number or bank account details before an in-person viewing all fire here. These are weight 4-5 because the genuine alternatives are well-established (meet at the building for lease signing; use a property-management portal for ACH; show ID at signing, not before).
How the score is calibrated
The total risk score is the sum of weights for triggered heuristics. Thresholds are calibrated so that no single false positive can push a listing into the "high risk" band on its own. The maximum weight is 5; the "high risk" threshold is 8. This is deliberate — we require at least two corroborating signals before issuing the strongest verdict, so that one confused weight or one quirky-but- legitimate listing can't produce a false alarm.
The high-weight (5) signals — cryptocurrency mention, wire transfer request, mail-the-keys promise — all individually trigger a "medium risk" verdict. They become "high risk" only when paired with anything else. This is the right calibration for a tool people might actually act on — the cost of falsely telling someone a real listing is a scam is large, so we make the strongest verdict require corroboration.
What the tool does NOT do
A few specific things to be honest about:
It does not verify addresses.We can't tell you a real apartment exists at 123 Main Street; we can only tell you whether the listing text matches common scam patterns. For address verification, look the building up on StreetEasy or Google Maps Street View, or — more reliably — visit the building yourself.
It does not check broker licensure.The NY Department of State publishes a licensee lookup; for high-value transactions, verify the broker there directly. Brokers operating in NYC must be licensed by NY DOS; a listing from an "agent" whose name doesn't appear in the registry is a separate red flag that this tool doesn't catch.
It does not check images.Reverse image-search is one of the most effective scam-detection techniques (scammers reuse photos from other listings or sold properties) but it requires uploading the listing photo separately. Google Images' reverse-search (lens.google.com or right-click → "Search image with Google") is the right tool — use it on every photo in a listing that triggers other red flags here.
It does not store anything. The pasted listing text runs entirely in your browser via client-side JavaScript. We have no record of any listing anyone has checked, by design. The tool sends zero requests to our servers when analyzing a listing.
It does not replace seeing the apartment in person. No textual analysis substitutes for in-person verification of the unit, the building, and the person handing over the keys. The single most reliable scam-defense move in NYC remains: do not pay anything until you have seen the apartment with your own eyes and met the landlord or broker at the building.
Where to go for the deep methodology
The full heuristic catalog with per-rule detection logic, false-positive risk notes, and the primary source citations lives on the scam-check methodology page. The plain-English narrative version of the five most common scam patterns (with examples) is in the apartment scam patterns guide.
Common questions
How does this tool work?
We run your pasted listing through a set of pattern checks — payment-method requests, communication red flags, suspiciously low rent for the neighborhood, demands for SSN before a viewing, and so on. Each pattern has a weight (1 to 5) based on how strongly it indicates a scam in published guidance; the total determines the risk band. Everything runs in your browser. The text never leaves your device, isn't logged to our servers, and isn't sent through any analytics. Close the tab and it's gone.
What are the most common NYC apartment scams in 2026?
Five dominant patterns, in rough order of frequency. (1) A fake listing copied from a real one with the price dropped 30-50% to draw clicks. (2) The classic NYPD-cited scam: a scammer claims to be out of the country, offers to mail the keys, and asks for a deposit by wire or gift card before any viewing. (3) Zelle, Venmo, or wire-transfer requests for first month's rent or deposit. (4) Urgency pressure — 'many applicants waiting,' 'must decide tonight,' 'send the deposit now.' (5) A phantom-landlord scam where someone advertises a unit they don't actually own while real tenants are still living there.
What is the FARE Act and why does it matter?
The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses Act took effect June 11, 2025. It bans landlords (and landlords' agents) from charging tenants a broker fee — only a tenant who hires a broker directly pays one. This means 'no fee' listings are now standard, not a scam signal. Older scam-detection guides written before 2025 sometimes flag no-fee listings as suspicious. They're outdated. Our tool does not penalize 'no fee' language.
What's the maximum application fee a landlord can charge in NYC?
Twenty dollars per applicant. That's the cap under New York State law (Real Property Law §238-a), and it applies to credit-check fees, screening fees, and background-check fees combined. A landlord or broker demanding $50, $75, or $100 for an application is breaking state law regardless of whether the listing is a scam — and demanding more than $20 is one of the strongest single signals our tool flags.
How much can a landlord ask for upfront?
First month's rent plus a security deposit equal to no more than one month's rent. That's it. 'First, last, and security' was outlawed by the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, and a landlord cannot charge a larger security deposit because you have a pet. If you're being asked for two or three months upfront, that's a violation of NY law and a major red flag — even from someone who isn't otherwise running a scam.
Is a low rent always a scam?
No. Rent-stabilized renewals at long-standing tenants' rates can be genuinely far below market, and family-discount sublets exist. But in NYC's current market, a 1-bedroom listing priced 40% or more below the neighborhood median is almost always either a scam, a misrepresentation of the unit's actual condition, or has a serious hidden issue (illegal SRO, basement unit, lease ending in 60 days). Always ask the landlord directly why the rent is what it is, and verify with comparable listings before sending any money.
Can I check if the building actually exists?
Yes, and you should. HPD Online at hpdonline.nyc.gov is NYC's official housing-buildings database. Type in the address — buildings registered with the city show their ownership, registered managing agent, total unit count, and any open violations. If the address doesn't appear or shows zero residential units, that's a problem. For deeper ownership records, ACRIS at a836-acris.nyc.gov has every recorded deed and mortgage transaction. Both are free, public, and faster than waiting on a sketchy listing's 'agent' to call you back.
What if the listing is on StreetEasy or Zillow — are those safer?
Generally yes. Both platforms run basic verification on brokers and have dispute processes if a listing turns out to be fake. But neither is foolproof. Scam listings still slip through, especially during high-demand seasons (June-August, December-January) when scammers exploit time pressure. The same rules apply on a 'verified' platform as on Craigslist: never send money before viewing the apartment in person, never use Zelle / wire / crypto for rent or deposit, and verify the listing's address independently.
The listing asked me to use Zelle, Venmo, or wire transfer — is that bad?
Yes. Real NYC landlords accept personal checks, money orders, or use a licensed brokerage's payment portal (StreetEasy, Buildium, AppFolio). Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, wire transfers, Western Union, MoneyGram, gift cards, and cryptocurrency are favored by scammers because the transactions are difficult or impossible to reverse once you send. Even if the landlord seems legitimate, asking for first month's rent or security deposit through any of those channels is a hard stop. Walk away.
What if my listing passed this check but still seems off?
Trust your instinct. This tool flags known patterns — it can't catch a scammer who avoided every published red flag, and it can't verify whether the photos match the unit. If the listing feels wrong, verify the building on hpdonline.nyc.gov, search the named landlord on ACRIS, and request a video walkthrough if you can't visit in person. Ask for the landlord's name and Google it together with 'review' or 'complaint.' If anything feels wrong, find a different apartment. There are always more listings.
I think I've been scammed. What do I do?
Move fast. (1) Stop all contact and payments immediately — do not 'try to recover' the deposit by sending more money. (2) Report to NYPD by calling 311 or visiting your local precinct in person. (3) Report to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov; this won't get your money back but helps build the case against the scammer. (4) If you paid by credit card, dispute the charge with your bank or card issuer immediately. (5) If you wired money, contact your bank within 24 hours — sometimes a recall is possible if the recipient bank hasn't released the funds yet.
Does this tool guarantee a listing is safe?
No. We flag known patterns from NYPD, FTC, StreetEasy, and NY consumer-protection guidance. We can't verify the landlord is real, the photos match the unit, or that any of it exists. Use this as one signal in a larger checklist: view in person, verify ownership through HPD or ACRIS, never send money via untraceable methods, never give an SSN before a viewing. This is not legal advice. If you've already been pressured into sending money and want help recovering it, talk to a tenant-rights attorney — most NYC bar associations have free referral services.