“We receive dozens of messages a day from desperate students who are looking for a room,” says Daan Donkers of Hospi Housing, an organization that matches international students with host families.
“Some indicate that they have been (almost) scammed several times, sometimes for hundreds of euros. The problem in Utrecht is dire: two days ago one of our hosts posted a room in Utrecht, and received more than a hundred responses. We often see that international students are really hopeless, which makes them easy targets for scammers.”