The Coolest City In The World
For anybody looking to rent a property in London, whether it is a room, flat, apartment, or house you have to do so with your eyes wide open. Because the London property rental market is full of sharks, crooks, cheats, liars and con men and woman, who if you give them half a chance will rob you of your money and you will never hear form them again.
There are countless con artists operating a variety of London property rental scams in the Big Smoke. . The police are next to useless at being able to stop or even catch these fraudsters. The bottom line is, if you fall victim to the scammers you will never lay your hands on that money again.
Whatever you do, if anybody that is supposedly renting a property mentions the dreaded words, Western Union, the first and last thing you do is delete the email or hang up the phone. Don’t even read or listen to another word they have to say. It is a scam, and I cant believe the amount of people that I hear or read about that have been scammed out of money in this way.
Also never send money to anybody, if you have never seen the property before, no matter how desperate you think you are. Don’t even think about this one. You would have to be totally crazy to even think about it. Don’t even send money to companies that you think are legitimate! Why would anybody pay for a property that they have never seen before.
To give you good folks an idea of the kind of scams that are part of the memorandum of the London property rental scammers, click on the links below.
1. A blog devoted entirely to London rental scams on Gumtree, Scams On Gumtree
2. An interesting article, that shows very clearly why you never send money via Western Union, BBC Article
3. Someone that fell for the tricks of the scammers, I can’t believe I fell victim to the Scammers
Also watch out for leasing agents, that charge you an upfront fee for their services. Their favourite ploy is to advertise loads of cheap properties all over London, on Gumtree and Craigslist as well as in the Loot newspaper, Leasing Agents etc.
When your looking to rent a property in London or for that matter any city in the world, be careful and do your research. The scammers know every trick in the book and the reason that they are still in business, is that they quite simple, keep on getting customers! Whatever you do, don’t become victim to the scammers.
Another article that I have written, which may be of assistance to those looking for guidance is , How Not To Rent A Flat In London.
I’m a Scotsman In London, who just happens to be a blogger, entrepreneur and budding Screen play writer. I’m just trying to live the dream and achieve the things out of life that I desire. 
I created a rental scam detection tool if anyone is interest in seeing if they are getting scammed.
http://www.pickrent.com/stuff/scamquiz.cfm
Dave Dugdale
I have been in contact with someone who tried to cheat me. Look at this follow email:
Re: Your Gumtree.com ad #41034523: 1 SPACIOUS BEDROOM FOR RENT IN MAYFAIR
De: John Bruce (tleechal22@yahoo.com)
Enviada: domingo, 28 de junho de 2009 12:14:13
Para: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks for your email and it is my gladness to hear from you.I am John Bruce,the owner of the Flat you are making inquiry of.Actually I resided in the Flat with my family,presently we
moved away due to my transfer from my working place,my Flat is
Located at 20 Garrick House Carrington street Mayfair London and presently my Flat is still available for rent for 400 GBP per month including the utilities like hydro,washer,gas,internet, council tax and one secured parking Space,it is fully furnished but we can get it unfurnished for you if you prefer that.Now, I went for a Crusade in the West Africa and i will like you to get in touch with my wife
in the United states for more details & pictures of our flat as She is with the keys and the documents to the Flat.Please, i want you to note that i am a kind and honest person,
also i spent a lot of money on my property that i want to give you for rent,so i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this Flat and want you to treat it as your own,I hope you understand that.I want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat
when i eventually come to London to see our clean it is and will try to do that some day..Where are you located? let us know how soon you are willing to move in as we are deciding very soon on who to take our flat.
Email my wife Jennifer on (jenniferbruce19@yahoo.com) she will attend to you better.
Thanks for your interest.
Best Regards,
John
It is amazing that people are so niave that they fall for the western union scam, it is dam obvious that its a con.
I have got the same email, but from another name of the man:
Re: Reply to your ad: 1 LARGE AND SPACIOUS BED ROOM FLAT FOR RENT
Tuesday, 8 September, 2009 1:46 PM
From:
This sender is DomainKeys verified
“Ken Johnson”
Thanks for your email and it is my gladness to hear from you.I am Ken Johnson,the owner of the Flat you are making inquiry of.Actually I resided in the Flat with my family,presently we moved away due to my transfer from my working place,my Flat is Located at 31 Rosary Gardens,South Kensington London, SW7 4NH, England and presently my Flat is still available for rent for 400 GBP per month including the utilities like hydro,washer,gas,internet, council tax and one secured parking Space,it is fully furnished but we can get it unfurnished for you if you prefer that.Now, I went for a Crusade in the West Africa and i will like you to get in touch with my wife in the United states for more details & pictures of our flat as She is with the keys and the documents to the Flat.Please, i want you to note that i am a kind and honest person,also i spent a lot of money on my property that i want to give you for rent,so i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this Flat and want you to treat it as your own,I hope you understand that.I want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i eventually come to London to see our clean it is and will try to do that some day..Where are you located? let us know how soon you are willing to move in as we are deciding very soon on who to take our flat.
Email my wife Jennifer on (jenniferbruce19@yahoo.com) she will attend to you better.
Best Regards
It’s expensive signing up with a letting agent, you have to pay for credit checks to be done plus other admin costs.
And thats before you are even considered as a tennant.
The scammers know this and use it to there advantage, it looks like a cheep way of getting into a rented property.
Its like the old saying goes.
If it looks to good to be true, It probably is….
I too, received the same email as Marcia and Tatiana. The content was identical, only the names changed: Mathew and Mary Law.
I received the same email from a certain Mathew Law. The flat was supposed to be at 24 Rosary Gardens, South Kensington. When I contacted the wife’s address this Mathew gave me and I received the following email (to qhich 5 photos of a flat were attached):
Thanks for the email.My husband owns the Flat, also want you to know
that it was due to my husband’s transfer that made us to leave the
Flat and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care
of the it, we are not after the money for the rent (which is why is so
low)but want it to be clean all the time.So for now,I am in
Greensville NJ in the United States in our new home for a seminar and
also I am with the keys and documents of the Flat since the agent we
trusted let us down,so viewing won’t be possible for now as we will
never trust any agent nor realtor due to the bad experience we’ve pnce
had.We don’t want the Flat to be used any how in our absence that is
why we took the keys and documents along with us here since my husband
is also in West Africa for a mission for God’s Work.I hope you will
promise us to take very good care of the Flat which is what we are
really looking for.So get back to me on how you could take good care
of our Flat or perhaps experience you have in renting a home.Hope you
are okay with the price per month with hydro,gas,electric,internet
facilities,council tax all included in the monthly rent…View
pictures in the attached files.I am looking forward to hearing from
you as soon as possible so that i can forward you an application to
fill out and discuss on how to get the flat for rent.
Hope to read from you soon.
Mary
I responded to her and received a third email which is the one that made me suspicious, not only for its content, but also because the quality of the English was different, worse.
See the text below:
Hello Antonella,
Good hearing from you that you are promising us about our flat will be well taken care off,and I really appreciate your expression.I will tell my husband that he shouldn’t make such a mistake again by sending full address of our flat to strangers,Thank you for that.Like I told you in my previous email,there’s none of my friends nor agent to show you the flat due to the bad experience we’ve once had..I want you to stick to your words and i hope you won’t let me down?Below is the final question that you must answer to qualify for the rent.Infact I will like to meet you when coming to visit you soonest and see our tidy you are..We do a long term and short term renting,We are ready to give out our flat for maximum of 2years but you can as well let us know whenever you feel to move out from our flat..
Note that you will are not allowed to enter the flat now until everything is being finalise as the
keys/document is here with me in New jersey.
*******RENT APPLICATION FORM*******
(Private & Confidential)
Also,Pls let me get this answer.
1)Your Full Name
2)Present Full Address(where you reside now) & Phone Number to Reach You
3)Age
4)Are you married?
5)How many people will be living in the house?
6)Do you have a pet?
7)Do you have a car?
8)Occupation?
9) Citizen of which Country?
10) When are you ready to Move In ?
11) When are u planning to leave the flat ?
12) How many months rent can you deposit upfront (plus security
deposit(350GBP which will be given back to you after the contract)
Looking forward to hear from you with the application form being filled.Once i get your application form,I will be forwarding it to my husband for approval.If he doesn’t approve it,theres nothing i can do about it but if he does,then you are lucky as we have alot of offers and are also ready to move in ASAP.Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the documents and the keys to you and also how you will send the deposit to my husband.Please,I believe that we have to do this transaction based on Trust & Honesty and again I want you to stick to your word (every single word i mean),We are putting everything into Gods hand,so please do not let us down in this property of ours and God bless you more as you do this.
N:B : I had an accident which affected my hearing and my legs , I am currently on a wheel chair right now, I do not use a phone that’s why I am always online,Just fill out the application form above and email it back to me so that i can forward it to my husband for approval..
Thank you so much and have a Wonderful Day.
God Bless..
Mary Law
It was then that I started researching the Internet and found confirmation to my suspicions. I’m glad I escaped this scam, but I am worried now to have ended up in the “sucker list”. I even sent these con people my home address and number as well as two photographs of my husband and I. At least didn’t get my money! What a sucker I was! But I guess it could have been much worse…