I rented for 10 months without missing a payment – then discovered I’d fallen victim to a shocking new rental scam

I was enjoying one of those wonderful lazy days between Christmas and New Year’s when a voicemail from my then-landlord suddenly turned my life upside down.

During a ten-minute text message that left my heart pounding, he told me, ‘You have five days to move out of the apartment; “We are all being evacuated,” he said.

I couldn’t make sense of this. I’ve been renting a room in a three-bedroom flat in east London for the last ten months and haven’t missed a single payment.

As a regular person, I have never missed a payment. I have an excellent credit score and live a law-abiding life. How was I, a professional and reliable individual, in this position?

What I didn’t know at the time was that I had fallen for a new rental market scam. The worst part is, I later found out that I was living with my cheater and even shared my dinner with him.

At first I was only supposed to live in the apartment for a month, it was an interim. I had just bought my first home, a newly built flat in east London, but it wasn’t quite ready to move into yet.

I moved out of my previous apartment share last February and found a room on Airbnb near my new home that I could rent for a month until I got the keys.

Ten months later, I had converted my not-at-all-homey Airbnb living situation into a home, with the move scheduled for March 2026 due to issues with the heating and hot water system.

The Airbnb was a smart three-bedroom flat in a block near London City Airport.

All three rooms were for rent. A master bedroom with a large bathroom was listed for £2,700 per month, a smaller double for £1,700 and a single for £1,500. There was a common living area, main bathroom and balcony; these were all clean, modern and much more attractive than some of the tired bedrooms in the same area. There is also free parking.

The rental cost of properties listed on Airbnb typically averages around £2,000 per month, as they are designed for short-term stays. I knew I would have to pay more because I couldn’t get a longer term contract.

It was more expensive than I really wanted to pay – my previous flat cost me £1,000 a month – but that was only for one month. I splurged and booked the double room.

On arrival I met my host, whom we will call Felix. He was tall, in his 20s, and looked professional. I also met another young man who became my temporary roommate; The Man who is as tall as him but smiles much more.

The man said he had just returned from a trip and was ‘Airbnbing’ until he decided where he wanted to live more permanently.

Felix took the time to show me around, make room in the locker, and help me carry my bags.

After unloading my car, I asked him to let me into the underground parking lot.

‘Oh, there’s free parking outside,’ he said. But it was clearly not free parking.

Outside the flat the roads were painted double yellow and where my car was located there were clear signs saying ‘loading only, 20 minutes maximum’.

After going back and forth with the owner for ten minutes, I decided to trust my instincts and park in the nearest, safest and most affordable multi-storey car park that would allow me to come and go throughout the week. It was in Stratford, 20 minutes away, and cost £9.50 a day.

Later that night Felix was still in the apartment and only then did I realize he was living with us. Airbnb hosts usually explain when this is the case; Felix didn’t do this. He was staying in a single room while Adam’s master was there.

As a young woman, living with two men was not an ideal situation, but based on my first impressions, I felt like I had nothing to worry about. In all cases there were locks on the bedroom doors.

As a young woman, living with two men was not an ideal situation, but based on first impressions, Louise Oliphant thought there was nothing to worry about.

On my way to work the next morning, I passed a row of cars littered with yellow parking tickets. Luckily I didn’t trust what Felix said.

Having confirmed that I needed to park before my visit, and it was clearly advertised in the Airbnb listing, I was disappointed to have paid an extra £300 that month to park my car close to where I was staying.

I spent the next few weeks scouring websites and local Facebook groups looking for bays to rent. Anyone with a car in London knows this struggle.

I managed to find a guy with a space available in my building’s underground car park, which cost £150 a month. It was a good thing I did because the day after I spoke to him, I heard from the contractors on my new house that it wouldn’t be move-in ready for at least another three months.

Felix reassured me that I could stay longer and even offered me a subsidized rent (£1,200 per month) if I stayed longer.

To pay the cheaper rate, he said I should pay directly to his business and not through Airbnb.

In hindsight, this was a mistake as I lost the valuable protections that Airbnb offers.

I thought I had to get used to living here.

The next few weeks were spent with the three of us getting to know each other. We had gotten into a bit of a routine. I would be home from work between 7pm and 8pm, we would cook dinner, then watch TV or spend the evening chatting.

The man went to bed at 10pm most nights, and I went to my own room shortly after.

But our host apparently didn’t sleep at all. He was always the last to enter the living area and the first to get there in the morning. A computer screen was set up at the dining table where he ‘worked’ at the Airbnb company all night.

Even though it was strange, it didn’t concern me at all.

One evening in April, I was shocked when I heard an old man’s voice coming from the living room. He introduced himself as ‘Yusuf, who was staying in the third room’.

I looked at Felix in confusion: ‘Isn’t this where you sleep?’

‘I’ll sleep wherever I am,’ he told me.

It suddenly dawned on me that their ‘all-nighter’ was a cover and that he was sleeping on the couch every night while secretly renting the third room. His cryptic response made me very uncomfortable.

When I started thinking about it, I realized that he kept his bedding and other belongings in a locked closet in the hallway of the apartment.

Was this allowed? It turned out that it was. However, according to Airbnb, this could mean misinterpretation of the space if not disclosed to tenants for full transparency.

The next few months were not pleasant. Different people would come and go in the third room, paying up to £300 a night, and Felix continued to use the living space as a bedroom. I tried to look to the past because I didn’t believe there was a better option.

After all, the owner wasn’t a terrible person, he was nice to be around every day. I was also in the office five days a week and would often go to my parents’ house in the Midlands at the weekends.

It was a weird living situation and far from stable, but it did the job as new construction delays kept pushing back my moving date.

While I can’t blame anyone but Felix for this, I’m curious about the measures Airbnb takes to certify hosts

I lived there for 10 months before my landlord left the bombshell voice note last December.

He confessed about everything; He admitted that he never owned the apartment, that the rental company did not exist, and that he had not paid the rent or bills for nearly a year.

Felix was renting the apartment alone and had created a profile on Airbnb to rent out rooms, claiming to be the host. He took our money but did not pay the rent.

In the voice note she left me, she said we had all been given an eviction notice and had five days to vacate the apartment.

He made excuses to the landlord for not paying the rent and listed various problems to the building management. He said: ‘They are not responsive, won’t let me park, aren’t on site and aren’t willing to fix anything broken.’

He described the situation as ‘an opportunity’ to move into a ‘larger three-bed’ and proceeded to tell me about a new property he had ‘secured’ about five minutes’ drive away.

His calm voice scared me. My answer was the exact opposite; I started to panic. I was sleeping peacefully in an unpaid apartment; I come and go from work as I please and chat with the neighbors in the elevator. Even though none of this was my fault, I felt ashamed.

Was I really that naive and were there warning signs that I ignored?

As a result, he was taking money and cash from people in vulnerable living situations.

Over tea with my mother we calculated that she had pocketed around £30,000 of the rent from the ‘tenants’ while doing the post-mortem. And that was just from this property.

He told me he had three other properties in the city. Of course, that might not be true, but if it were, it could mean more people are in the same situation and he’s making even more money.

She would often stock her fridge with necessities, hire a cleaner, and offer us takeout; And I assumed he was an incredibly generous person.

The truth is that we were paying for all this ourselves, living in an apartment that we did not have the right to occupy. As soon as I found out, I packed my belongings within two days and moved in with my family while waiting for my new home to be ready.

I feel lucky that I didn’t have the shock of property management, bailiffs or police visiting the flat while I was there. I don’t know if anyone has joined since or if my old landlord still lives there since he told me he was moving to a new apartment.

I don’t know if Adam has any idea what happened since he moved out a few months ago and we haven’t been in contact.

In the UK, it is illegal to rent a property you do not own without the consent of the landlord or housing association.

Those who do so will face fines of up to £50,000, prosecution and even criminal prosecution and imprisonment. I don’t know what will happen to Felix, and frankly I’m glad to be out of this mess. Since I was never legally declared a tenant, I owe nothing to the landlord.

While I can’t blame anyone but Felix for this, I do wonder about the measures Airbnb takes to certify hosts.

When I escalated this to Airbnb, a spokesperson said of my situation: ‘The bulk of this stay was booked through the platform for 10 months and we always remind guests to book and pay on Airbnb; Here, guests can benefit from our secure processes and policies, such as AirCover, which provides guests with rebooking support or refunds if there is an issue with their stay. ‘The server is no longer on the platform.’

Airbnb puts people at risk by allowing people like my host to present themselves as accredited business accounts hosting multiple properties.

The good news is that my apartment is finally move-in ready in a few weeks and I can put this period of my life behind me like a light on the road.

Names have been changed