I stumbled across this unfortunate article recently, which summarises how one unfortunate individual, Craig Spokes, paid £20K in advance directly to a (supposed) new Landlord, but it turned out that said Landlord, one 'Samy Daim' was just himself not, in fact, the property owner, or representing the owner, he was just a tenant in that property.
Samy acted as the landlord, drew up a contract, did a viewing with Craig and then arranged for him to send him £20K directly into his bank account.
It turned out that Sammy was himself already £14K in debt with the actual landlord, in rent arears, and so when Craig moved in, it was only a few days until he was evicted, him and his belongings thrown out on the street.
Samy walked off with that £20K, or rather it seems jet-setted off, if you believe his social media posts shortly after Craig's eviction. That's if you believe this guy is brazen enough to use his same (real?) name for his rent scams and his personal feeds...?
How can this happen...?
I mean the first reason is the naivety of the guy who paid £20K directly into someone else's account. Clearly he had no idea about checking landlords before paying, he didn't do his due process.
Maybe the sad truth is that there are just enough desperate people to keep fraudsters like this in business... and they're desperate because of the lack of rental properties inn the UK.
This example is an extreme one, but imagine if you get onto SpareRoom, get shown around by a 'nice person' and then they say '£700 deposit and one month up front' it's much easier to to part with £1400, and then you go back a week later only to find that they are nowhere to be seen and there's no way of contacting them. Those type of scams have been on the increase!
I think you have to be so careful and go via verified sources and DON'T PAY CASH. If you don't do the latter it makes it much easier to track down fraudsters, and it's a case, I hate to say it, for legacy banking!
Slack policing...?
I also wonder if the police maybe don't put too much effort into chasing down scammers... and maybe this is fair enough, when it's up to individuals to do their due diligence and there are very clear formal systems in place to make sure rental fraud doesn't happen.
But this is mainly only for the relatively well-off, it tends to be the poor and marginalised, the ones with poor records who must rely on cash, and these are people who are most likely to get scammed, unfortunately these are also the people the police are least inclined to work for!
Final thoughts....
It has to be down to the individual to approach the rental market with massive caution, and do due diligence on their prospective landlord, easier said than done when you're desperate for somewhere to live, but your'e better off homeless and just homeless, rather than homeless and £2K lighter because you've just been scammed!
As for Samy Daim, he's on the radar....! (If this is really him!)
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Sometimes people are off their guard and make such mistakes. We should never think that the person opposite us is like us.
Yes fair point, on not trusting people with money!
People get desperate when it comes to finding somewhere to live and the scammers will prey on them. Of course they will make it seem urgent to close the deal. Sad times.
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STOPthis can't be right... this would get you shot in 'merica fo sure.