UK Rental Fraud Could Cost £4.1bn as Fake Identities Rise

Some people in the United Kingdom try to trick landlords when they want to rent a home.

They make up fake papers, like letters pretending they have a job or earn a certain amount of money.

A company called Goodlord looked at more than one million rental applications to find out how common this is.

They found about 41 suspicious applications for every 1,000 checks they did.

This kind of trickery could cost the rental world around £4.1 billion every year.

Fake job letters went up a lot, more than 226 percent in one year.

The problem is biggest in London and in very expensive homes.

Cheaters are now making up whole pretend jobs and pretend referees instead of just one fake document.

Bad people can also use clever computer tools to make fake papers that look real.

Landlords are being told to check applications carefully and look at the whole story.