While researching something related to Adware, I happened to come across this.

From the looks of it, potential victims are contacted via Instant Messaging, before being encouraged to move the discussion to EMail. From the initial forum post:

"I'm looking for a rental property and I received an email from someone with pix of almost too-good-to be true property in my favoured area. I have asked about a viewing and she wants my name and address to send an agreement, which I must sign BEFORE viewing the property. I have rented seven properties in London and I have never come across this before. Am I right to be wary?"

....see anything weird here? Yep, the scammer is showing them images of properties local to the victim, as opposed "some random house on the other side of the UK". This means either they're looking for Instant Messaging profiles with altogether too much information in them, or they're obtaining this information by other means (trawling property purchasing websites, forum profiles, real estate directories).

Of course, they then go on to ask for a smaller deposit on the house purchase than normal, along with "security fees" (and a refusal to let the victim view the property on offer, which sort of gives the game away, doesn't it?)

Most definitely a case of Buyer Beware, even if you only happen to be renting...!