About us

We take payment for accommodation reservations and pay the housing provider once the tenant has actually moved in.

That is the whole product. Everything below is either how it works or what it deliberately does not do.

The problem this exists for

Someone is moving to Germany from abroad. They find a flat online, and the landlord — reasonably — wants a deposit or a first month's rent before handing over keys to a person they have never met. The tenant has no German bank account, no local references, and no way of knowing whether the flat is real.

One of them has to go first, and whoever goes first carries all the risk. In practice that is the tenant, and a percentage of the time the flat does not exist at all.

Neither party is being unreasonable. There is just nobody in the middle.

What we actually do

The tenant pays us for the reservation instead of paying the landlord directly. We pay the landlord 48 hours after the move-in date — a window in which the tenant can tell us something is wrong and stop the payment.

Before a landlord can receive a single euro, they have to pass an identity check with Stripe: a government ID and a bank account in their own name. Someone using a fake name cannot get through it. That check is the strongest protection here, and it is the reason a nervous tenant can afford to say yes.

Both sides agree the cancellation terms in writing before any money moves, and both keep a copy.

What we are not

We would rather you read this here than work it out later.

• We are not a bank. We are a booking platform: you pay us for a reservation, and we pay the landlord after you have arrived. We do not offer banking, savings or money-holding services of any kind.
• We do not vet or endorse landlords. They are verified by Stripe, for payment purposes. That is a real check and it is not a character reference.
• We do not inspect properties. We have never seen the flat.
• There is no such thing as a 100% refund here. Card processing fees are kept by the card networks whether a payment goes ahead or is refunded an hour later, and we do not cover them out of our own pocket. Our own fee always comes back in full — see the cancellation policy.
• Once the landlord has been paid, it is gone. We cannot claw it back.

How we make money

One fee, charged to the tenant, on top of the reservation amount. The landlord is never charged anything and nothing is deducted from what reaches them.

When a deal is cancelled we return that fee in full, every time, whoever caused the cancellation. On a full refund the platform's net is exactly zero — it neither earns nor loses. That is a deliberate choice: a company that profits from cancellations has a quiet reason to want them.

Who is behind it

My name is Prakhyat Sapkale. I had came to Germany in 2021 to pursure MBA in Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The journey of No Rent Scam began when I conducted research for my thesis on the experiences of Indian students living in Germany. During this work, it became clear that many newcomers were vulnerable to exploitation due to a lack of verified resources. Numerous cases were uncovered where students paid large, hidden fees to middlemen under the promise of securing housing, only to arrive in overcrowded, substandard conditions. Because of a mix of isolation and embarrassment, many endured these hardships alone—a silence that unfortunately allowed unprofessional practices to flourish.

No Rent Scam was created to break this cycle by facilitating a foundation of trust, verification, and transparency. It is a digital platform designed to support Indian students and professionals throughout their transition to life in Germany.

Our legal details are in the Impressum. If you want to ask something before you trust us with any money, that is a reasonable instinct — write to us and a person answers.