Ben Reeve Lewis’ Friday Newsround #22

[Ben Reeve Lewis  is looking out for the scammers  …]

Property scams are my subject this week.

Why?

It’s a serendipity thing. I have just been door stepped by a suspicious looking guy selling tea towels in the name of a homelessness charity and been fending off another doorstep man over the last few weeks who seems unusually interested in the sex life of my partner as part of some national sex survey.

Frazzy doesn’t seem that fazed by his intentions but I will not have my best moves and techniques exposed to the hoy-polloy, especially that thing where I………well, let’s not go there!!!!!

Nigel LetEngine who posts on this site, pinged a tweet my way from this guy predicting Olympic property scammers.  You may recall I predicted this last week too. [Thats David Lawrenson – he did one of our podcasts here – Ed]

Accommodation agency scams

Also, serendipity in mind, as a working TRO I have in the past week been involved in investigating a couple of local accommodation agents who defy belief in their scam-ness. Scams abound, especially when there is property involved, where quick bucks are the target

I am no libel expert and am presuming that if names are kept out of the frame I will be ok. Tessa is the lawyer here though, so I am in her hands. [No names, no pack drill – never been sure what that means – Ed]

Said dodgy letting agents concerned, (I still don’t get how they are pulling it off) have the keys to properties that the owners are oblivious of, and are renting them out to 3 or 4 different tenants at a time.

When none can take up residence, because they are let to others through the same agency and 2 other fake agencies with temporary shop fronts around south east London, all run by the same crew, the agents refuse to reimburse them.

Names and contracts

The company name has been nicked from a genuine local entrepreneur who, until I called him, knew nothing of the scam and one of the bosses of the agency is a deportee who has re-entered the country under her sister’s name. Word on the street is that there is a contract out on her life, set up by a property owner who she has stiffed for 5 grand.

The tenants turn up at the agents kicking off South East London styleeee, and the agents tell them that the landlord has withdrawn the property and they will return their deposit and rent in advance, but it will take a week or two. Of course, nobody gets paid, it’s all bounced cheques and BACS payment s that never arrive.

I also got a phone call from an office furniture company in Waterloo who took a cheque from these people, which turned out to be in the name of a closed bank account of a company that didn’t exist in the first place.

Keeping it in the family

The icing on the cake, is that I took a section 9 statement from a disgruntled would-be tenant who bumped into another woman in their office, also seeking redress, who had paid £2,500 in deposit and rent up front and had been stiffed on the same promise of payment.

The woman was comforting a baby who, it transpires, is the child of the director of the fake agent. What can you do when a scammer is prepared to rip off his own child’s mother??????

And now to the Olympics

With people like my crew above, prepared to do anything at all in the name of property scams where do you think things are going to go in the prospective property scam-fest that is the upcoming Olympics?

One major online property portal (anonymously keeping with my non libellous thread) [too right,I don’t want to get closed down – Ed] is running adverts by several firms offering big bucks for rental deals during the month of the Olympics. Are they all straight? I very much doubt it.

I have no doubt that there are many genuine companies who see the impending event as a legitimate source of income for themselves and their clients, but this is London People, and like any major world city there is going to be criminals hell bent on parting landlords and tenants from their money.

Part of the problem/opportunity, if I can call it that, is that the vast majority of the people seeking accommodation in the capital for the big event will be from abroad. They will be setting up their accommodation from thousands of miles away using the internet. It is easy to create a legitimate looking website.

And it isn’t just out sport’s hungry visitors who are in the firing line either. London’s property owners lured by the promise of a year’s rent in 1 month will also be prime targets for these people.

We all know that the government has no plans to licence landlords or agents, so unregulated fly by night companies will be setting up/have been setting up, ready to reap the gold rush.

Advice to would be Olympic landlords

My advice to London’s property owners? By all means take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity but for god’s sake please do your research thoroughly. Use name people with a pedigree and a bit of longevity, don’t take the advice of Dave down the pub.

• Check companies house for a reference.
• Google names you are given, even
• look on Facebook – you would be surprised how many dodgy landlords I have tracked down through Facebook.
• Begin now to track information exchanges taking place on Consumer action group website.
• Use Twitter,

Hell, I might even start an Olympic property scam website anonymously to circulate the latest scams.

I am not saying that landlords shouldn’t do it. If I had a property vacant at that time I think I would be interested myself.  Just use a lot of circumspection folks before you sign on the dotted line to that friendly, be-suited young man with the winning smile.

Personally I think that London’s council’s should also be ahead of the game on this one, particularly Newham Council, which is where the stadium is. Council’s should be monitoring things as they develop and circulating information as it comes in. Of course this won’t happen, the words ‘Proactive’ and ‘council’ rarely share a bed, they will just pick up the pieces afterwards, that’s what council’s do.

I honestly think scams are going to abound. As Shaw Taylor used to say on Police 5, “Keep ‘em peeled”

Ben Reeve Lewis

Ben has started Home Saving Expert, to share his secrets to defending people’s homes from mortgage repossession Visit his blog and get some help and advice on mortgage difficulties and catch up with him on Twitter and check out his free report “An Encouraging note on Dealing with your Mortgage Lender” and have it sent right to your inbox.

Key picture by alancleaver_2000, Olympic Stadium by John Salmon