Western Union Lettings Scam: Tenants Beware

It doesn’t happen very often but, if it succeeds, it can be devastating to those affected. We’re talking about rental scams whereby fake “landlords” con prospective tenants into paying money upfront for a property which does not exist.

The scam usually works like this. The fraudster posts an advert for a property to let on a classified ads website or in the press. The property address may be genuine but it is posted under a fake ID and using photographs usually taken from other property ads. When a prospective tenant enquires about viewing the property they are told that the landlord lives some distance from the property and is happy to arrange a viewing but wants to be sure that he is not wasting his time. The landlord asks for the tenant to prove his/her good faith by transferring a sum of money – usually one month’s rent – to a friend (perhaps another flat mate) by Western Union money transfer. The “landlord” assures them that there is no risk in this because they are only transferring the money to a friend. When they have made the transfer, they are asked to scan the confirmation receipt or email the details of the transaction to the “landlord”, who promises he will then show them the apartment.

In most cases, the fraudster lives abroad and uses the transaction details to withdraw the money from his local Western Union office. We presume he does this by altering the scanned receipt in some way.  Very few checks are required by Western Union to withdraw sums under £2000.

The property, of course, is not owned by the fraudster and the tenants never hear from him again.

RentFair checks all properties added to our site and regularly removes suspicious properties as soon as they are listed. Unfortunately, some are very difficult to detect and we are grateful to two members who emailed us about one such property in Islington recently. Needless to say, we removed the property and “landlord” immediately.  Even charging landlords for advertising makes very little differences since the fraudsters have ready access to stolen credit card details and have no problem paying for services online.

For some time, we have had prominent warnings across the site never to proceed with a property where you are asked to wire money in this way, whether by Western Union, MoneyGram, or any other such service. If in doubt, email us and we will investigate.

The signs to look out for are:

• fraudsters use addresses that they know are desirable, perhaps to attract potential tenants, perhaps simply because these are locations they have heard of  - Kensington, Chelsea, Islington, Camden, Hampstead are common.
• properties often seem unusually cheap for the area (if it seems too good to be true…)
• photographs seem unusually professional – the interior sometimes resembles a hotel room, with soft lighting, cushions on the bed etc.  This may be because the photos are indeed pictures of hotel rooms or show properties.
• no one answers the phone or the number given is wrong.
• the “landlord’s” email address is from an easy-to-set-up email program such as gmail, hotmail or yahoo.

If you are at all suspicious about any of the properties advertised, please email us before you proceed.  The scam affects all property advertising sites, as well as printed classified papers such as Loot.  Our thorough checks make RentFair one of the safest places to rent property.  Please help us to keep it that way.