False advertisements are being posted on real estate websites and Australian and international students looking for homes are falling into the trap.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, one of these scams uncovered by NSW's consumer watchdog has international links to the Netherlands, England and Hong Kong.
These fake online ads have bargaining prices that asks for people who fall for them to deposit payments into a western union account.
NSW Fair Trading Commissioner, Rod Stowe, made an announcement of the crackdown on one of these fraudulent websites.
The site features ads that offer two bedroom apartments for $550 a week, with photos and wordy descriptions. The website also offers dramatic low asking prices than original websites do.
Stowe told the Sydney Morning Herald "the offer is too good to be true."
"The website...comes from a residential address in London that is also liked to a large number of businesses."
Sydney Morning Herald reported, Stowe revealed that the server hosting the website was based in the Netherlands and the domain name refers to a wrong address in Hong Kong. He added that this is causing many internet providers to shut online real estate scams down.
"Often internet service providers don't want to associate with this kind of thing, so it's in their interest to remove it," he said.
Although these shutdowns and alerts are out there, people still fall victim to the scams, as they are desperate for a good deal and deposit the money right away.
"I am determined to exhaust every option to fight scammers ripping off consumers and am pleased Western Union is prepared to join the fight," Stowe said.
"They have offered to fully investigate complaints involving the international transfer of funds for goods or services never delivered."
