When Awosika went to the building the following day, she realised the scale of the problem and described how group after group arrived, all expecting to collect keys for the same property.<\/p>\n
She decided to set up a WhatsApp group to keep track of and share information amongst those affected.<\/p>\n
Neither Fringe nor the landlord who owns the property responded to the BBC’s questions.<\/p>\n
Since then, Awosika said, 23 people have contacted her claiming to have been targeted in the same way, all linked to the same flat and the same agent.<\/p>\n
Figures from Report Fraud indicated the cost of rental fraud was a growing issue with reported losses almost doubling in the past five years.<\/p>\n
In 2021, there were 4,642 rental fraud cases reported leaving those affected \u00a37.2m out of pocket.<\/p>\n
In 2025, 4,178 cases were reported in England and Wales and Northern Ireland – costing victims \u00a314.5m.<\/p>\n
Among those who joined Awosika’s WhatsApp group were Freazy Warr, 24, Nirrhit Pal, 23, and three other flatmates, who between them transferred \u00a37,200 to secure the same property. They never received the keys either.<\/p>\n
“As the moving van was pulling into the road, we were told by a friend to cancel immediately because two other groups were already waiting,” Warr said.<\/p>\n
“My lease was ending and I was terrified I’d have nowhere to live.”<\/p>\n
He said the pressure of London’s rental market had left them feeling vulnerable.<\/p>\n
“There are so few affordable properties,” he said. “Students and people without a lot of money are pushed online, where it’s harder to know who to trust.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Awosika went to the building the following day, she realised the scale of the problem and described…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-628785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}