In this RentUncle review, we will be detailing whether the platform is legitimate and safe for you to use.
The room rental market in South Africa is huge and with any market as big as this one, there will always be some bad apples in the mix so you need to know the background of a company and what other users say to know if a company or platform is good .
Table of Contents
What is RentUncle
Rent Uncle is a property listing platform, much like Property 24 or Private property.
The service that they provide is that they allow visitors to search for properties to rent on the buyer side. On the seller side, they provide agents and property owners with a way to advertise their rental property.
When this works properly everybody wins because the buyer is connected with the seller with as little friction as possible to conclude the transaction of renting.
How RentUncle Works
As a renter, you go to the rent uncle website and search for property in the location that you want to rent in.
From the seller side, it provides agents and owners with the ability to advertise their properties on the platform. There is no charge for this and, unfortunately, this is where the problems start.
How RentUncle promotes Rental Scams
Because it is free for anyone to create a listing on Rentuncle, this makes it appealing to scammers because there is no cost to putting up a speculative false ad to see if anyone bites.
If it works, a scammer can simply put up a bunch of fraudulent ads on the website at no cost. This is why there are so many scammers there now.
If, for example, it cost R365 for an ad like it does on Private Property, the scammers would be disincentivized. Just to put up 3 ads, for example, would cost R1000. So because of this fee, only people who are investing in the marketing to rent out a real property would be willing to pay as they are selling a legitimate good.
Rentuncle Reviews and Complaints
Several real estate agencies have laid complaints against RentUncle for using their name to facilitate scams where they pose as the legitimate real estate agency to defraud unsuspecting clients out of money by telling them to pay a deposit before viewing the property. Some of the companies who have published complaints include well-known companies like Remax and Jawitz Properties.
Below is a screenshot of what the Rentuncle profile looks like on HelloPeter. As you can see all of the RentUncle reviews are negative and report fraudulent activities by scammers on the platform.
They have the worst possible score you can have, which is minus 100
https://www.hellopeter.com/rentuncle
The complaints also report that they have tried to contact Rentuncle to have the scam adverts removed but there has been no way to contact the company, and that is why many have resorted to posting warnings on their websites detailing how the scam works and advising people to avoid using rent uncle. Here are links to some of the article from South African real estate brands.
https://www.privateproperty.co.za/advice/property/articles/avoid-this-property-scam/8865
https://www.remax.co.za/ask-remax/article/avoid-this-property-scam/
Where is Rentuncle Located?
The company is actually not in South Africa. Looks like it’s in Dubai based on the following website and the Twitter and Facebook accounts that we have found for them online.
This website is listed as a Dubai business as well. There are no details of the website’s location and we do not know if it even exists in South Africa as a registered company.
Here are the links to the original website and social media profiles.
https://www.facebook.com/RentUncleUAE
https://mobile.twitter.com/rentuncleuae
Dubai is a great place but it is also out of the reach of the long arm of South African law.
So if you get scammed there without the details of someone in South Africa to chase after, there is nothing you can do.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- There are a lot of properties listed on rent uncle. At the time of writing, there are more than 60000 properties listed throughout South Africa
- The layout of the website is simple and easy to understand. It also has map-based results which can be helpful in pinpointing where a property that you want to rent might be.
- If you are an agent and you want to use the platform, there is no fee for signing up. So for those starting out as agents and want to keep costs as low as possible, this is helpful. The lack of a fee for listing does come with its own problems, however, which we will explain later on.
Cons
- Many listings do not have images. This should be a requirement for a listing staying up on the website. You can easily trick someone by simply putting up a low price to entice them, which is already what is happening a lot.
- Because there is no fee for listings, scamsters can set up multiple fake listings for the purpose of defrauding people. This is because there is no cost in doing this, encouraging these unethical types. As a result, there is no way to tell how many of the listings on Rent Uncle are legitimate and whether the website is dominated by scams.
- Open to abuse. It would be very easy for an unethical person with programming knowledge to set up 100s or thousands of fake accounts. We have already seen it in other social media platforms like Instagram where people create computer scripts (also known as bots) to create a huge number of fake profiles and sell them to those who buy fake followers. The same things can be done here in order to fish out people to scam. Create many fake listings that will attract many interested customers. And then when people call regarding the property, that is a potential lead who will be defrauded.
- No proof of existence in South Africa, not even social media.
Is Rentuncle Legit
No, Rentuncle is not a legitimate property website from South Africa. The business is based somewhere in Dubai as can be seen by its social media and parent website. They have no physical presence in South Africa, nor any customer support that you can contact in the event of issues. If anything negative happens to you through Rentuncle, you have no recourse as the company is beyond the borders of South Africa.
How To Avoid Rental Scams
Here are some tips on how to avoid rental scams, from the Harcourts Website.
- Be wary of free Internet advertising sites. Most con artists are unwilling to pay to a perpetrate fraud and most abuse the many free sites that are available. For this reason, it is recommended that prospective tenants deal with larger, dedicated property websites or a rental agent’s business webpage.
- Only deal with a registered letting agent. Anyone can claim to be a letting agent so it is imperative to ask to see a copy of their Fidelity Fund Certificate. Only agents who have registered with the Estate Agency Affairs Board and are therefore legally allowed to practice will have this important document in their possession. Be certain to check the date on the certificate. It must state that the agent is licensed to practice for the current year. Agents are not allowed to sell, rent or list property unless they have a valid certificate.
- Never rent a property sight unseen, no matter how good it looks in the photographs.
- Always meet the person you are dealing with. Con artists will go to great lengths to avoid meeting the person they are trying to scam. If the landlord/agent is unwilling to meet, or offers numerous excuses as to why they can’t meet, treat the renting exercise with caution and do not deposit money into his account.
- Do not allow anyone to pressurise you into making a decision. Be wary of pushy people. If they threaten you with the fact that they have other tenants waiting to snap up the rental, rather walk away and find another property.
- If the rent being charged seems to be too good to be true, it probably is. Be very wary of suspiciously low rentals. Do a little homework to ascertain whether the rent being charged is in line with other rental properties in the area.
Alternatives to Rentuncle
If you want alternatives to Rentuncle, you can use well established platforms that have quality control systems like Property24 and Private Property. These might take a little bit more work, but they are far safer.
You you are looking for rooms, you can also use Facebook groups that are dedicated to the location you want to rent a room. The Facebook groups can also have scammers, but at least you can look into the profile of whoever you are renting with to verify that they are legit and you can have a trace to follow in case something goes wrong.
There is also a new platform being built specifically for room rentals called Rooms To Rent, which aims to provide the same services as the established brands, but catering exclusively to the rental of rooms and cottages. The website will launch in January 2023 and serve the room rental market that is prevalent in business districts and in townships but does is not serviced adequately like what you get in the suburbs and higher rental price areas.