August 9, 2026
Rent-bait and switch
When the apartment listing is too good to be true
Commenters say this “dream” Zürich flat was a scam from line one
TLDR: A “perfect” Zürich apartment turned out to be a classic fake listing using real photos, stolen business names, and a payment trap. Commenters were split between laughing at the obvious red flags and raging that the real rental market is so brutal the scam almost looked normal.
The internet took one look at this too-cheap Zürich apartment and basically yelled, “Girl, run.” The original post walks through a scambait investigation: a real apartment, stolen photos, borrowed agency names, and a suspicious switch from Swiss francs to euros when money time arrived. Add in the fantasy bundle of electricity, internet, TV, water, heating, and even parking all included in a city where parking alone can cost a small fortune, and readers were not exactly shocked. One top reaction brutally summed it up: the story could have ended at “below market, with every utility included.” Ouch.
But the comments weren’t just warning signs and nodding heads. They turned into a mini roast of both the scammer and the housing market itself. One person joked, “At least they filtered out the emojis before posting,” which is somehow the funniest possible review of a fake landlord email. Another went even darker, saying the real rental markets in Switzerland and Germany are “indistinguishable from scam,” because finding a place there is already so miserable that fraud almost blends in. That hot take gave the thread its mood: yes, this listing was fake, but people are also furious that the real system feels barely less absurd.
There was even side-eye aimed at the write-up itself, with one commenter calling it “AI-generated copy that says a lot and commits to nothing.” So the drama had everything: scammer sleuthing, housing despair, and commenters dragging the prose while they were at it.
Key Points
- •The author says a below-market Zürich apartment listing on Immoscout24 led to a suspected rental scam investigation conducted as a scambait without sending money.
- •The property at Bristenstrasse 20 in Zürich is described as real, but the article says the listing operator had no connection to it and likely reused legitimate photos.
- •According to the article, the listing used the name of real agency IMMOPRO gérance Béatrice Jotterand Sàrl, while later communications referenced ThyssenKrupp Immobilien and a private .de-domain sender.
- •The article argues that agency-name verification on Immoscout24 appears weak, allowing advertisers to type in unverified company names.
- •The author identifies three red flags: bundled electricity and internet, a free parking space in Zürich, and a rent that changed from CHF 2,350 in the listing to €2,350 in follow-up communication.