Property fraudster target students and tourists in London letting scam.
The Police have received hundreds of complaints about fake online advertisements for flats. There are some online fraudsters who are trying to rend property to students and foreign holidaymakers that does not exist.
This fake renting seems to elaborate by the offering off the houses in prime areas below the market rents and asking for deposits or full payments in advance. When they find out that the property does not exist, they can’t refund their money.
A lot of classified websites are investigating advertisements that arise suspicion and check a proportion of their advertisers. Although, it is impossible to them to check every property promoted on their sites. Most of the fraudsters do their homework on the rents so the websites are seeming very reliable.
At least they advice in the article to avoid money transfer organisations such as Western Union who are frequently used by the internet fraudsters, drug dealers or money launderers to move money around the world because there is a relative absence of safeguards, they are not requiring a address verification for the transfer of smaller amounts.
Personally I think this is awful that this happens to all this peoples, especially to the people who are on vacation and notice that the address does not exist. It’s a pity that there is no obvious solution for this problem.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/sep/27/property-fraudsters-students-tourists
Written by Magalie Van Belleghem, 3RP1
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According to me there will be a lot of property fraud by internet in the future. Like it is said in the article, it is very difficult to check every advertisement on the internet. When you buy something on the internet you have to be very careful so paying a big amount of money in advance with for example Western Union is not reasonable because you have no possibilities to get your money back. I hope that someone will find a solution for this problem because otherwise a lot of people will witness this phenomenon.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenNavaron Walraeve