As we were getting a little desparate in our quest to rent a property in Brighton, I put a Property Wanted ad on one of the free online classifieds websites.
Within 24 hours I had several replies, all eerily similar.
- The person had a place available in an amazingly central address
- The pictures of the rooms sent looked like something from a new showhome
- Rental deposit and monthly rent were about 1/3 of what I expected – a veritable bargain
- The property address bizarrely included the country “Brighton BN1 ZZZ, United Kingdom”, implying the person was writing from abroad
I was very suspicious to start with, but decided to write back to one to arrange a viewing. The reply I got was lengthy, and described how I needed to prove I had the money to proceed on the property as many previous viewers had caused the landlord problems.
The email went on to suggest I prove my solvency by wiring the equivalent of the deposit and one month’s rent to a friend using my nearest Western Union. I didn’t need to wire it to the sender of the email so that I could feel my money was secure, but they did need to see a copy of the receipt proving the transaction was done.
Once they had seen the receipt, my friend could simply withdraw the money and give it back to me, and the landlord would refund me the fees.
A quick Google brought up a range of pages explaining the scam, explaining how:
- This is a scam
- The fraudsters are typically in Nigeria, mostly concentrated in Lagos
- They advertise a below market rent for a very nice property and explain a transaction similar to the above
- Once they have the copy of the receipt they go to a Western Union, pose as the friend named on the receipt and withdraw the cash
The awful thing is that it seems many people in the UK and potentially other countries have fallen for this scam, and have lost their money.
What’s even more amazing is th Western Union’s id verification is so lax as to allow this to happen – surely they must know what is going on?
In the end we did not receive one genuine reply to our classified ad, so do be very careful if you are considering a Property Wanted classified ad as a route to seeking your new home.
