17/07/2026
Good morning,
You may have seen a recent news story about the latest scam that fraudsters are running in the rental market – using and abusing the very type of deposit protection scheme that we are campaigning to get shut down.
What happened?
The news site London Centric spoke to a renter called Callum who viewed a flat with Islington’s Anchor Gate lettings agency.
After checking the agent was a member of a government-approved redress scheme, he applied for a tenancy, providing references, passport and bank statements. Callum paid the agency £3,500 to cover his deposit and first month’s rent, but on the move-in day, he discovered that he had been scammed and that the flat was actually a short-term let owned by someone else. The scammer had rented the flat for the weekend just to conduct viewings. When he tried to contact Anchor Gate about this, he couldn’t get through and he realised he had been robbed of thousands of pounds as well as a place to live.
How was this allowed to happen?
The scammer was able to register with the Property Redress Scheme, Companies House and MyDeposits and obtain a government stamp of approval. Anchor Gate paid less than £250 to register as a limited company, join the Property Redress Scheme’s public register of letting agents, and insure Callum’s deposit with the government-backed protection scheme MyDeposits.
By providing this proof that the deposit was insured by a government-approved scheme, they were able to persuade Callum into thinking they were legitimate. Thankfully he was able to get his money back through his bank as he had been a victim of fraud, but many other victims aren’t so lucky.
This highlights the importance of our latest deposits petition, which urges the government to scrap these insurance-backed deposit schemes. There are many problems with this type of protection scheme, beyond their vulnerability to abuse – letting agents can make money off it by pocketing interest, and it can be hard to get your money back if the letting agent goes bust. Requiring deposits to be lodged with the schemes themselves (known as “custodial”) would protect renters more effectively and make it easier to get back money that is rightfully theirs at the end of a tenancy.
There is still time for people to add their support to the petition, so please share it with your friends and family.
Many thanks for your support.
Ruhi at Generation Rent
P.S. If you’d like to stay up to date with Generation Rent’s other campaigns, you can join our mailing list here www.generationrent.org/sign-up
Ruhi Lahoti started this campaign on the 38 Degrees Campaigns by You website. If there's an issue close to your heart that you'd like to start a petition on, you can start your petition here.
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