'I was finding hundreds, if not millions of scams': The struggle to find student accommodation
One student attending University College Cork said she has 'given up on looking for a place to rent in Cork City'.
Ahead of the academic year, university students have been combing the internet and replying to listings on Daft.ie, Facebook groups, and other social media platforms in their quest for accommodation.
On Wednesday, thousands of prospective first year students received offers from the CAO.
However, the housing crisis and rising demand for student accommodation have forced many students to commute from other counties, lose deposits, or fall victim to scams.
One student attending University College Cork said she has âgiven up on looking for a place to rent in Cork City".
Alicia Rochford, aged 24, said it is cheaper to commute from Tipperary than to find an affordable rental in Cork. She told the that she spends two hours daily travelling by train to college.
âIâve had to say to myself that realistically, I cannot take on 9am classes because my earliest train, if I was to wake up at 6am, would leave at 7.30am from Limerick Junction and then reach Kent by 8.30pm. I would be racing then,â she said.
The final-year student said she had been âactively lookingâ until a month ago, when she found her current place.
âI was looking on Facebook, Daft, UCC Student Pad, as well as various â six or seven different county Facebook groups for accommodation in Limerick, Cork, and I was finding hundreds, if not millions of scams,â Ms Rochford said.
âI was reporting them myself, but when you report one, another one shows up,â she added.
âThe countless times when they would offer you something, and ask for the deposit before you have seen it. Or they would show you pictures constantly, and it would be of European homes.
âI would literally have to look at the plug sockets in every single picture they have sent, because it is not even a room or an apartment that exists in Ireland,â Ms Rochford said.
The West Clare student added that she also checked each Eircode on Google Maps to verify addresses. Ms Rochford warned there will be âmore and more scamsâ as students become increasingly desperate before the new academic year.
According to gardaĂ, accommodation fraud rose 22% in the first half of 2025, with reported losses of âŹ385,000 compared to âŹ617,000 for all of 2024. In the past 18 months, Cork university students have been frequent victims of scams.
Garda Sergeant Mick OâConnell said incidents peak each August as students search for housing online and through social media. One scam involved a fraudster posing as a landlord after gaining entry to a vacant property.
âWe have had students, in particular international students, who have been affected,â he said. âThereâs such a shortage for accommodation, and they are under pressure, and they can sometimes be presented with a great offer, and they believe it. If it's too good to be true, then the chances are it isnât a genuine accommodation place."
Scammers often claim to be abroad and unable to show the property, but still demand deposits. âDemand is high, and there isnât enough property there,â Sgt OâConnell explained.
âThey feel under pressure to pay the deposit, and the next thing is theyâve lost the deposit and the person is gone. Students are under so much pressure they might pay up to a couple of hundred euros.âÂ
In Cork, fraudsters have shown apartments to multiple students, collected deposits, and vanished.
Sgt OâConnell said:
âHe got all their deposits, and when they came back, they couldnât get into the house. The keys didnât work, and the âlandlordâ disappeared and wasnât answering the phone. Heâd given them a bogus number.âÂ
That individual was caught and prosecuted, he added. "A lot of the time it can be quite difficult to catch them, if people donât meet in person and if money is transferred through Revolut,â Sgt OâConnell added.
Joanne lost âŹ1,800 after an accommodation scam while searching for housing in Galway last December. âIt was my first time looking for rent in Ireland; I never had to do this before,â she said.
âI came across the offer on one of the Facebook groups, and looking back at it, it was definitely too good to be true. It was a studio apartment going for âŹ600 a month. I assumed I was chatting to the previous renter via messenger who then gave me an email address for the landlady.
âI contacted the landlady, she claimed she was deaf and therefore could only communicate via WhatsApp, which I was like, 'yeah thatâs not a problem if it helps',â Joanne said.
She said she was asked to send a photo and some information before being sent a video of the apartment that was filmed by a young man.
âI didnât think to question that, because I thought it was her son-in-law. She said she was Dutch and then I kept saying, 'Letâs meet up, let me see the apartment'.
âBut she kept saying her daughter just gave birth to a baby and that she was helping her look after the daughter. It kept going on for weeks, and then eventually she asked me for the deposit and the first monthâs rent.
âI paid âŹ1,800, and a one-year contract was signed, both by her, a solicitor and then myself. I thought that everything was legitimate,â Joanne said.
When she asked for keys, the woman claimed her husband had given the apartment to someone else.
âThe landlady started making excuses and said her husband had given the apartment to someone else who had also paid the deposit and rent, and to let him out, they would have to pay him back.
âIt was then that I realised that I was fooled, and I asked her to give me my money back, but I then figured out she had blocked me,â Joanne said.
When Joanne later visited the address in Galway City, she discovered it was a B&B, not an apartment.
One student said the room he rented during his second year raised many âred flagsâ â including paying into a foreign bank account, a withheld deposit, and gardaĂ showing up.
âI was paying my rent into a Belgian bank account,â Colm, who is studying at the University of Galway, said: âMy landlord lived abroad, and I did not realise until the end of my tenancy in that apartment that we were not even RTB registered.
âThis was my first time renting. I had previously lived in student accommodation, and it was not too bad. I paid my rent via direct debit into a Belgian bank account, which in hindsight was a red flag that I should have seen.
Colm said he found the situation âstrangeâ as they never received visitors. It turned out to be gardaĂ looking for the landlord.
âWe explained that he did not live here but lived abroad and that we were renting the house. The gardaĂ said they did not know that the house was being rented out,â he said.
âI later found out that around the time I had signed the lease last summer, a tourist couple had also done the same but had lost out on their deposit, and it was never returned,â Colm claimed.
He added that in May this year, he decided to leave the house and gave two weeksâ notice.
âThe landlord said I could come back in September and that there would be a place for me there. But then I found out that the person who was viewing my room for the summer was actually looking for something long term,â Colm said.
âI was then left looking for something before the start of the new term this September, and it was even more stressful because I needed to get something before the CAO offers, otherwise I would be joining the 5,000 other people looking for housing at the same time."
Colm added that since leaving, he has not received his âŹ800 deposit despite leaving the room clean, sending multiple messages to the landlord, and contacting the RTB.
