Gumtree, the online classified ads website, is overhauling its website and mobile apps in a bid to cut fraud risk.

Estate agents are one of the two largest business users of Gumtree – the other being car dealers.

Gumtree, owned by eBay, is launching a new homepage along with a new logo and better search facilities, and is introducing live chat.

It said the investment was the highest in its 15-year history.

The relaunch comes after repeated complaints of scams on the site, with Citizens Advice warning that around one in six adverts were either a scam or a potential scam.

While there is no suggestion that estate agents themselves were behind any of the scams, certainly fake agent firms were.

A common scam was where tenants were asked to pay deposits, often via Western Union – which they never saw again.

Another was where fake agents would advertise a property to let, even going to the trouble of setting themselves up in offices.

They would show people around properties that they did not own, let it to several tenants, take their deposits and first month’s rent, and vanish.

Separately, the Victoria Derbyshire programme was yesterday told that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is now having at least one home buying scam reported to it every week.

Scamsters break into either the conveyancing firm’s email system or the buyer’s, and intercept payments.