Their Photos, Someone Else's Listing: Canberra Renters Speak Out on Property Image Theft

A Gungahlin renter looking for a two-bedroom unit in May found her own lounge room staring back at her from a fraudulent listing on a major rental platform, photos lifted from her current lease ad, reposted with a false address and a weekly rent $180 below market rate. She was not the target. She was the bait.

The problem of duplicate property images, legitimate photographs scraped from genuine listings and recycled into scam or ghost advertisements, has moved from a fringe annoyance to a documented pattern in Canberra's rental sector. With vacancy rates remaining critically tight and competition fierce in suburbs like Belconnen, Tuggeranong and the inner north, fraudulent listings are finding an audience among desperate prospective tenants willing to hand over holding deposits before inspecting a property in person.

A Market That Makes Scams Easy

The ACT's rental market has been under sustained pressure. The Real Estate Institute of the ACT has previously noted vacancy rates hovering below two per cent across much of the territory, a figure that housing advocates say creates the exact conditions scammers exploit, urgency, competition and fear of missing out. When a Braddon one-bedder appears at $320 a week, applicants move fast. Verification comes later, if at all.

The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which handles tenancy disputes in the territory, does not currently track complaints specifically tied to image duplication or fraudulent listings as a discrete category, making the full scale of the problem difficult to pin down. Consumer protection falls partly under the ACT Office of Fair Trading, which handles general fraud referrals, but community housing workers in Civic say residents rarely know where to report the issue, or whether reporting will accomplish anything.

Northside Community Service, which operates from Mitchell and supports renters across Gungahlin and surrounding areas, has fielded inquiries this year from clients who lost between $500 and $2,000 in advance payments to listings that turned out not to exist. Staff there say the victims are often newer arrivals to Canberra, interstate public servants transferring to departments in Barton or Woden, international students enrolled at the Australian National University on Acton's campus, or workers on fixed-term contracts who cannot afford extended motel stays while searching.

What Affected Residents Are Saying

Community members across Canberra have described versions of the same experience in online forums, particularly in suburb-specific Facebook groups for Belconnen and Weston Creek. The pattern is consistent: a listing appears on Gumtree or a smaller aggregator site, the photos match a property recently advertised legitimately through a licensed agency on Allhomes or Domain, the contact responds only by message, and a deposit is requested before any inspection is offered.

Several residents described contacting the legitimate property manager, often an agency on Northbourne Avenue or in the Woden Town Centre precinct, only to discover the agency was unaware their photos had been reused. The agencies themselves face reputational damage when tenants, confused and angry, associate the fraudulent contact with the genuine business name that appeared in the original legitimate ad.

The ACT Shelter network, a peak body for housing advocacy in the territory, has been collecting informal accounts from member organisations since early 2026, with the aim of building an evidence base for a formal submission to the ACT Legislative Assembly's next inquiry into rental market regulation.

For anyone searching for a rental in Canberra right now, housing workers recommend a few practical steps. Verify any listing by searching the property address directly on Allhomes or the ACT Land Titles Office before transferring any money. Cross-reference the contact phone number with the agency's publicly listed number. Refuse any request for a holding deposit before a physical inspection, ACT tenancy law does not require pre-inspection payments, and no reputable property manager will insist on one. Reports of suspected scam listings can be lodged with the ACT Office of Fair Trading by phone or through Access Canberra's online portal. The more reports filed, the stronger the case for the territory government to mandate image-origin verification on platforms operating in the ACT.