Some letting agents are fraudulently taking thousands of pounds from tenants as a holding deposit, not letting them move in and keeping the money, a Newsbeat investigation has found.

Trading standards authorities in England said 487 such cases were reported from January 2011 to September 2013.

The charity Shelter said the numbers were “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Reported by BBC Newsbeat. You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.