Am I simply thinking too much?

I am looking for a room in a Scottish town. I posted in the local house search group, a girl, who is a friend of one of my Facebook friends, commented to offer me a room in the house she is in. I proceeded to message, she sounded very friendly, sent me a dozen of photos and we arranged a viewing yesterday.

She looked very friendly, showed me around, including her well-decorated room. Her belongings were scattered across the house. We chatted for half an hour on topics ranging from the possible arrangement, which would be subletting, to some of her personal life. It sounded normal. She then asked me to send her some of my documents to her university email while she was preparing the subletting agreement as agreed in our meeting. I just sent, pending further updates.

However, I came across scary stories while reading up news about rental scam, some of which included scammers "renting" an Airbnb property for the sake of holding fake viewings to scam victims out of "deposit". I am quite afraid and not sure if I should really trust the girl, but I don't find it appropriate to approach that Facebook friend to confirm the status of the girl since I'm (1) not too close to that person (2) afraid of that person contacting her about this, which may create distrust and sabotage the deal.

I have to secure a room by the end of this month, or will become homeless in the sense of having to stay in hotels, so I am very confused at the moment.

It's wise to be cautious. Have you searched for the property on-line, particularly on Airbnb (or or similar sites)?

Given that you'll be subletting, you could legitimately ask to see the tenancy agreement she has with her landlord in order to confirm that subletting is actually allowed. Now, she could have faked a tenancy agreement - so you can't necessarily trust it anyway. However, the agreement will contain the name of the landlord (or at least the letting agency) she's renting from. So you could then check that they're legit.

Again, the theoretically fake tenancy agreement could list a genuine agency. So you'd then need to call that agency and confirm that they do indeed manage that property and that she is actually the tenant (they might not be happy to confirm that she's the tenant, but I'd be surprised if they weren't happy to confirm that they were the managing / letting agent).

You could also ask to see her id, on the basis of you needing to formally know who you're entering into a sub-letting agreement with. If she's legit, I don't see why she'd have a problem with that.

If you can confirm her id, see her rental agreement, and confirm that the property is actually rented to her - then you should be fine. (And all the above is probably overkill anyway - but better safe than sorry.)

I searched on the Airbnb website and couldn't find that property listed for any holiday purposes. She said she was renting from a private landlord rather than an agency, who may only let the house to her until late summer due to the wish of that landlord to turn it over to the in-town university to become a university-managed property, and she may also move out if she gets accepted into PhD by any universities outside the town.

But one thing is that she did mention her landlord doesn't want to write up a new contract for the sake of subletting to someone, so I asked her to write up one specifically for mine, which she agreed...I would wait for the draft and see

Just checked the Scottish Land Registry and the property is indeed owned by someone

Well, it's good that it's not listed on Airbnb. Have you search for her on-line, to ensure she's given you her real name, and that you could potentially track her down if she ran-off with your deposit?

Well, every property is owned by someone. Is it owned by the person she claims is her landlord?