Refuse the Borrowed Clock

A rental advertiser who needs a deposit paid today, before any viewing and into a personal account, is very often running a scam, and the hurry is the giveaway. The pattern is familiar. A young teacher moving to Tzaneen for a new post finds a flat online at a good price. The advertiser says others are interested, so the deposit must clear by this evening, and a viewing is impossible because the current tenant is difficult.

Every part of that runs on borrowed time. A registered agent holds a Fidelity Fund Certificate that can be checked with the PPRA. A genuine agency keeps tenants' deposits in a trust account in the agency's name, and a real flat can be seen before any money changes hands. Each of those checks takes a day at most, and speed is the only defence the scammer has against them, so speed is what gets sold. Honest landlords and agents expect to be checked.