You sent a deposit. The "landlord" stopped answering. The keys, the lease and the apartment never existed. It is an ugly way to learn a listing was fake, and the Federal Trade Commission keeps a page on it.

Start with what the sources actually cover

The FTC publishes consumer guidance titled Rental Listing Scams, plus a 2024 alert, Avoiding rental listing scams. In summer 2025 it ran another alert, Moving this summer? Watch for rental scams. Three alerts and guidance pages on one topic suggest the FTC sees it as a recurring problem.

Here is the limit of this article. The captured text of those FTC pages was mostly site navigation. We could not confirm their specific advice. Read them directly. What follows is built from the sources we could check, with the gaps marked plainly.

The first moves, in order

Order matters when money has left your account. The sources do not say how fast you must act, so treat this as a sequence to follow, not a promise of any outcome.

  1. Stop paying. If the "landlord" asks for a second fee, a "holding" charge or a late penalty, do not send it.
  2. Save everything. Keep the listing, screenshots, texts, emails, the name used, phone numbers and payment receipts. Do not delete the thread, even if it feels embarrassing.
  3. Find the report route. USAGov runs a Where to report a scam tool. It asks where the scam took place, what category it falls under, and for more details. Then it points you to the agency or organization that handles that kind of complaint.
A renter's kitchen table in bright morning light, with a laptop and printed listing and receipt pages spread out while sorting evidence for a report.
A renter at a kitchen table with a laptop and printed screenshots of a rental listing and payment receipt, sorting evidence before filing a report.

Gather the evidence before you open the reporting tool. Dates, amounts and the way you paid are the details it is most likely to ask about.

The turn: scam or just a bad landlord?

This sorting step is easy to skip. USAGov separates scams from disputes with a legitimate business. If the problem is with a real company, it sends you to a complaints section instead. Each route leads to a different place.

A fake landlord who never owned the unit is a scam. A real property manager who is slow to return a deposit is a different problem. Know which one you have before you file.

  1. Note how the contact reached you. USAGov says scams arrive by mail, phone, text, social media, in person and online. Write down which channel the listing and the messages used.
  2. Use the reporting tool. Answer its questions as plainly as you can.
  3. Read the FTC recovery page. The FTC has What To Do if You Were Scammed. We could not verify its steps from the captured text, so check it yourself.

How big is this, really?

An FTC data spotlight carries the headline Rental scams hit home with $65 million in reported losses. The captured text did not give the reporting period or how the number was built. Treat it as a reported total, nothing more.

By definition it reflects only losses that were reported. It is not a clean count of victims, and it is not a trend line. That is all the source supports.

What the sources do not say

You probably have questions the federal pages we reviewed do not answer. We would rather say so than guess.

  • Whether to contact your bank, card issuer or payment app about a dispute or reversal, and how quickly.
  • How to try to recover money, file a police report, or reach a local or state consumer agency.
  • How a rental scam could touch your credit report, or whether identity theft steps apply. The CFPB page on recovering and rebuilding your financial life is about disasters and emergencies, not rental scams.
  • Warning signs in listings, such as deposit requests before a viewing, or the payment methods scammers favor.

If you shared a Social Security number or sent ID copies on a fake application, that is a separate worry, and the sources reviewed here do not address it. Look to official identity theft guidance from the federal government for that piece. Consider asking the company that handled your payment what options exist. Those are questions to ask, not outcomes to expect.

This is general education, not advice for your situation. Stop paying, save the evidence, use the official reporting tool, and read the FTC pages firsthand before you decide what to do next.