London renters have been warned to beware of flats being offered for rent with up to five different asking prices.
House hunters could be shortchanged by up to £200 a month with different prices for the same property being charged by different letting agents.
One 30-year-old flathunter, Jonathan, found the same flat listed five times on property website Zoopla.
Each of the five adverts came from a different agency, and asked for rents of between £1,500 and £1,300 a month - a difference of £2,400 a year.
Jonathan told the Mirror: "It's hard enough looking for a flat in London, with websites often re-posting old listings as new weeks after a flat has been let, without having to cope with seemingly contradictory messages and listings that just appear false."
Zoopla told the Mirror that one flat can be marketed by multiple lettings agents, although usually the price is the same.
It has been suggested that some agencies may be giving a higher asking price to use as a negotiating tactic.
Duncan Stott from PricedOut, the campaign for affordable house prices, said: "This does seem odd. It seems to be that the landlord engaged multiple letting agents to market the flat and they all put it up at different prices.
"There's no harm in haggling with letting agents to see if there's room for manoeuvre on the rent, especially given the eye-watering administration fees many of them charge tenants.
"But even if this two-bed flat costs the lower price to rent, that still means a couple both earning £20,000 per year will see nearly half their take home pay disappear to their landlord."
