A new scam on online classified website Gumtree has been uncovered by the National Landlords Association (NLA).
Potential tenants, usually from overseas, reply to advertisements on the website for rental accommodation in the UK. After supposed satisfactory emails, tenants are asked to send money to the ‘landlord’.
Having sent the money, when the tenants attempt to make contact with the ‘landlord’ or collect keys to the property, the ‘landlord’ is un-contactable.
In this latest scam, the ‘landlord’ claims to be a member of the NLA, use the NLA logo and has created fake stationary copying that produced by the bona fide NLA Tenant Check service.
Richard Price, Director of Operations for the NLA, said: “Tenants, no matter where they are from, should not send payment to advertisers before they are certain that the advertiser is genuine.
“Overseas applicants needing to secure accommodation before they arrive in the UK would be well advised to first seek the help of the employer or university they are coming to.
“They will be knowledgeable of standard practices in the UK and often have lists of accredited landlords and local letting agents.”
Tenant wanting to check whether a landlord is a member of the NLA can visit www.goodlandlord.co.uk.
Scam victims should contact the relevant authorities in their own country, the police in the UK and the NLA on info@landlords.org.uk.
• A tenant pretending to be the owner of his rented townhouse sold it for £1.47million.
The deception was only revealed when bogus tenant Steven Rice attempted to transfer the cash from a Halifax account to a bank in Dubai.
Now property experts are warning landlords to check their property and not leave personal financial documents in tenants’ homes.
Rice, the managing director of a yacht company, is facing jail. He moved into the house in South Kensington, southwest London, under the name Stuart Knight.
And while claiming to be 83-year-old freeholder Vernon Stratton, Rice put the property on the market and successfully sold it.
The buyer then paid the money into a fraudulent account set up in the landlord’s name but building society staff raised the alarm when Rice handed over a fake driving licence in Stratton’s name.
Daniel Burgess, managing director of letting agency Discount Lettings, said: “Tenant sub-letting is not going to stop.
“But this is a one-in-a-million case. I can’t see many tenants having the confidence to get fake ID and maintain the front with solicitors.
“Even sub-letting a property you don’t own means you have to be pretty confident.”
Previously Rice rented a second house in Kensington under a false name and secured a £489,235 loan on the property from Lloyds TSB before the money transfer was cancelled at the last minute.
Last October he also tried to secure a loan on a £4million home in Knightsbridge, central London.
Rice, of Basingstoke, Hampshire, has admitted possessing a false ID document with intent and acquiring criminal property at Southwark Crown Court but denies charges of fraud and possessing an article for use in fraud. He is remanded in custody for sentencing on August 16.
