Stolen Identities, Stolen Listings: Central Coast Residents Speak Out on the Property Photo Scam Blighting Their Streets

Fake rental listings propped up by photographs stolen from genuine Central Coast properties have emerged as a persistent problem across the region, with residents describing a pattern of deception that has left families out of pocket and, in some cases, briefly homeless.

The scam works simply. A legitimate listing, often a three-bedroom house in suburbs like Niagara Park or a unit near Gosford's Mann Street, gets scraped by fraudsters who repost the same images on platforms including Facebook Marketplace and lesser-known classifieds sites at below-market rents. Prospective tenants, many of them Sydney commuters already stretched thin by the cost of living, hand over a holding deposit before ever setting foot inside a property that was never actually available.

The timing matters. Sydney recorded its hottest June since 1859 this year, a detail that sounds abstract until you consider that families stuck in limbo between rentals spent weeks scrambling for temporary accommodation during that run of unseasonably warm winter nights. On the Central Coast, where the rental vacancy rate has been sitting at historically tight levels, the window to find alternative housing after falling for one of these scams can be brutally short.

The Suburbs Most Targeted

Affected residents have reported duplicate image scams involving properties in Erina, Wamberal, Tuggerah and the Gosford CBD itself, where the ongoing renewal of the waterfront precinct has lifted interest in the suburb from interstate and Sydney-based renters looking for value. The Central Coast Council's housing data, presented to councillors earlier this year, pointed to a median rent for a three-bedroom house in the Gosford local area of around $580 per week, a figure scammers have been undercutting by $80 to $120 to make fraudulent listings look like genuine bargains.

Residents contacted by The Daily Central Coast, none of whom wished to be named in print, citing embarrassment and ongoing disputes with payment platforms, described broadly similar experiences. One family said they transferred a two-week bond equivalent after viewing photographs of a Niagara Park property they found on social media. The images, they later confirmed, belonged to a legitimate listing managed by a licensed agency on Pacific Highway, Gosford. The agency confirmed the photos had been used without authorisation but said it had no formal mechanism to monitor duplicate use across third-party platforms.

Consumer advocacy organisation CHOICE has previously documented the proliferation of duplicate-image rental fraud across Australian cities, noting that reverse image searches remain the single most effective tool available to renters before handing over money. The organisation has recommended that anyone inspecting a rental ad on an informal platform run the listing photographs through Google Images or a similar service before making contact with the advertiser.

What Residents and Agencies Are Doing Now

The Central Coast Tenants' Advice and Advocacy Service, based in Gosford, has been fielding enquiries about fraudulent listings with increasing regularity since early 2025. The service provides free advice to eligible residents and can assist with lodging complaints to NSW Fair Trading, which has jurisdiction over misleading conduct in tenancy advertising.

Real estate agencies operating along the Central Coast corridor, including offices in The Entrance, Erina Fair precinct and Wyoming, have begun watermarking their listing photographs more aggressively, though industry representatives acknowledge that watermarks can be cropped or digitally removed by anyone with basic editing software.

NSW Fair Trading accepts complaints online through its Service NSW portal, and affected residents are encouraged to document the fraudulent ad in full, including screenshots, the advertiser's contact details and any payment records, before the listing disappears. Complaints lodged by July 31 may qualify for inclusion in a broader review the agency has flagged for the third quarter of 2026.

For renters on the Coast right now, the advice is blunt: if a Mann Street apartment or a Wamberal cottage is advertised at well below what anything comparable is fetching, treat that as a warning sign, not a windfall. Run the images. Inspect in person. And never transfer money before a formal lease is signed through a licensed agent.