Rental Scams in Perth

Where to Report Rental Fraud in Perth

Rental scams in Western Australia are handled by WA ScamNet, a service run by Consumer Protection within the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. If you have paid money for a property that turns out not to exist, or you suspect a listing is fraudulent, you can report it to Consumer Protection on the advice line 1300 30 40 54 (charged at local-call rate anywhere in WA) or through the reporting form at scamnet.wa.gov.au. Reporting matters even when your own money is unrecoverable, because Consumer Protection uses these reports to identify prevalent scams and pass intelligence to law enforcement.

Perth renters should be aware of a specific follow-up trick documented by WA ScamNet: after a victim pays upfront for a fake rental, scammers send a second email impersonating the Bonds Administration team to falsely confirm the bond was received, making the payment feel legitimate and setting up further requests for money. Consumer Protection has warned that genuine correspondence from its Bonds Administration team comes from a wa.gov.au email address, so treat any bond receipt that arrives via the person collecting your money, or from an address that does not end in wa.gov.au, as a red flag. WA ScamNet reported 45 rental-scam reports in 2024 with 16 victims losing roughly 39,935 dollars, and reports continued into 2025, so this is an active pattern rather than a rare one.

For fraud involving actual financial loss or identity theft, you can also report to the Western Australia Police Force, which handles scams and fraud through its fraud reporting channels. Reporting to police in parallel with Consumer Protection creates a record you may need for your bank or for any chargeback or transfer-recall attempt.

Verifying a Landlord or Agent Before You Pay

Anyone acting as a real estate or business agent in Western Australia must hold a current licence and triennial certificate under the Real Estate and Business Agents Act 1978. You can confirm a person or agency is genuinely licensed for free using the Consumer Protection licence and registration search on the WA Government's website, searching either by the licence number they give you or by name and location. If someone claims to be an agent but does not appear in that register, or refuses to provide a licence number, do not transfer any money.

Because impersonation of legitimate agencies is common, verify the agent independently rather than trusting contact details in the listing. Look up the agency's real office phone number from its own website or the licence register and call to confirm the property, the person, and the advertised rent, instead of relying only on an email address or mobile number supplied by the advertiser. A property offered well below Perth's going rates for its type is itself a warning sign, so check the advertised rent against current market listings for comparable properties in the same area before you commit; a price that seems too good to be true usually is.

WA Bond and Fee Rules Worth Knowing

In Western Australia a security bond is capped at four weeks' rent for tenancies where the weekly rent is 1,200 dollars or less; above that weekly-rent level there is no statutory cap. Every bond must be lodged with Bonds Administration, the government body that holds bonds rather than the landlord or agent, and it must be lodged within 14 days of payment. So-called bond replacement products advertised as cheaper alternatives to a real bond are illegal in WA. If a landlord wants you to pay a bond straight into a private account and skip lodgement, that is both non-compliant and a common scam structure.

When you apply, the only upfront charge a landlord or agent may collect is an option fee, permitted under the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 while your application is considered and capped at a modest amount (up to 50 dollars where the weekly rent is 500 dollars or less, or up to 100 dollars where it is more). WA law prohibits separate application fees or fees to find a property for a tenant, so requests for an admin fee, holding fee or processing fee beyond the option fee are not legitimate. If your application succeeds, the option fee is either refunded or deducted from your first rent payment; if you are not offered the property, it must be refunded within seven days. A demand for several weeks of rent plus a bond before you have seen the property or signed a lease is inconsistent with these rules.