It's winter, but many youngsters in dozens of cities are out in the cold, looking for a home after being driven out of their rented apartments for no fault of theirs.

In fact, they have taken loans to pay a whole year's rent but will now have to pay the loan back, or risk harming their personal credit record.

The apartment owners, too, are suffering because they haven't received any rentals. Both parties are suffering because of Danke Apartment, a housing agency that collected the annual rentals from tenants but did not pay it to the owners. Instead, they used the money to expand their market by renting and letting out more apartments.

Danke is only one of the over 170 enterprises with a similar business model that has gone bust since 2018. They all started as financiers, then expanded their market through the above-mentioned business model and then got listed on the stock exchange by raising their market value.

The initial capital they get helps them make money, but once the honeymoon is over they offload the risks onto the people they are supposed to serve, namely house owners and renters.

Speculators say that if the victims drag Danke to court, the latter could file for bankruptcy. Also the victims cannot prove that Danke acted illegally, as there is no money trail. Even if the police intervene, Danke's business deals are clean on paper.

However, that's no excuse for the risky business model Danke employed and its shifting the risks onto their customers. Reports say that the price at which Danke rented apartments from the owners is higher than what it collected from the tenants. That's enough reason to suspect its sustainability.

Danke's senior executives should have known from the very beginning that their business model was flawed. That calls for a probe by finance supervision agencies, to not only punish those responsible, but also to prevent similar things from happening again.