Hi everyone,
I have been a victim of rental fraud on openrent. I saw an advertisement on Facebook. I enquired about this property and received an email from the fraudster who claimed to be owner of the property. He sent me an email which had a link with the property listing on openrent. The landlord then sent me an invoice to pay £1510.00. I paid this money by western union. I later called Openrent rent who confirmed to me the property does not actually exist. I was very disappointed to find out I have been conned. I have contacted Openrent who have advised me to contact the police about this matter. I will contact Financial Ombudsman to make a complaint.
You paid and had not seen the property in person?
Yes. I requested to view the property before making a payment but when I saw the invoice, I thought it was genuine.
This is not open rent fault . It is your mistake. You had not seen the place, Facebook is full of scams. You can check who owns a property with Land Registry for a few pounds next time. Do NOT believe everything on the internet
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Yes, it’s my mistake. I totally agree. I went on to look at the property and found out it is already occupied.I reported this matter to the police and report fraud who have actually closed the case.
It is a hard lesson and a lot of money. Anyone can post a picture of a house and say I can rent it. Ask for proof of their ID and check with land registry. Never pay before you view . There are scammers out there , both landlords and tenants. Do not let desperation for a place take over your thinking. P S Next time ask here for any advice here on a place first ?
@Jackline well done for sharing and sorry to hear about this
There’s advice to help mitigate risk of being scammed by fake landlords
Openrent do claim
"When landlords list with us we verify their details and have stringent systems in place to verify their ownership of the property. This, alongside numerous other features, are designed to ensure tenants are both protected from malicious activity and are dealing with the landlord directly.
Although these systems prevent most fraudulent behaviour they are not invincible and we recommend using our Rent Now service (free to tenants) where we can guarantee the safety of tenant funds.
If proceeding outside of Rent Now, we recommend taking a receipt for the Holding Deposit and asking the Landlord to confirm in writing what terms the Holding Deposit will be governed by. You will also want to be sure of their identity, for instance, by asking to see some proof of ID like a driving licence or passport.
You can find our full guide on setting up a tenancy with a private landlord here."
How do I know the Landlord owns the property? – Help Centre https://share.google/3xIBu5Jc71n0nqqAO
So if the listing was entirely fake it’s a fair question what checks if any OR did to verify ownership.
Good luck
Sad thing is that first timers are unaware of what to do as a check .“trust not the person you do not know”
Nothing to do with OpenRent. You took it outside the platform, the fault is with the scammer and you contributed by agreeing to go outside the platform. Everyone knows when somebody asks you to take something outside a platform then it is a scam. There have been so many cases of this with e.g. AirBnB that you have zero chance of a claim against openrent.