Accommodation scam targets trusting Kiwis

Scammers tried to con Auckland University student Waqar Ahmed Qureshi. Photo / Dean Purcell

Kiwis have been caught up in an international scam where fraudsters offer fake accommodation and trick victims into sending bond and rent money.

The scammers target flat-finder websites from all over the world. Once they have made contact with their home-hunting victims via email, they take money from them and then steal their personal details to scam the next person.

The Herald tracked down one of the victims after discovering her passport was being used as a form of identification to entice other flat-hunters to send money in return for fake accommodation.

The fraudsters go as far as speaking to the potential tenant over the phone.

A Kiwi working as a nanny in France, who did not want to be named, paid £1000 ($2214) through the Western Union as a deposit for an apartment in the centre of Paris after exchanging emails with a woman claiming she was in America.

The 28-year-old, now in London, made contact with the woman via appartager.com, a legitimate French website which people looking for a place to live sign up to.

The woman, via a Gmail account, sent photos of the property and a copy of her supposed passport as identification which said her name was Camille Emile. The victim sent back a copy of her own passport as ID.

She then said she would not be back in France for another three months so the nanny would not be able to view the flat.

However, she provided a phone number for "her brother" when the nanny asked to speak to someone in person. The man's accent sounded neither French nor English, the nanny said.

The scammer said she would send the keys to the New Zealander once she paid £1000, which she did.

The Herald tracked down the woman at her parents' Kerikeri home after a copy of her passport turned up in an email to another potential victim, this time a Pakistani national looking for an apartment in Auckland.

Waqar Qureshi, who moved to New Zealand in 2008 to study at Auckland university, put an advertisement a month ago on nz.easyroommate.com, a legitimate UK-based website with profiles of people looking for rooms to rent or looking for a flatmate.

The 26-year-old was emailed by three different people, including a woman claiming she was the Kiwi nanny.

The woman offered Mr Qureshi an apartment on Auckland's Anzac Ave and sent him photos of it.

She said she was in the UK so was unable to show him the place and asked for a $600 security deposit and $400 for the first week of rent to her mother's account through a Western Union Transfer.

Mr Qureshi also received emails and passport copies from a woman claiming she was a British citizen and from a man from France, who both said they were out of the country but asked for him to send money. He suspects the genuine passport-holders had also been duped.

Mr Qureshi said he discovered some of the emails had come from Nigeria. He had not complained to the police but said he wanted to make people aware of the scammers.

The nz.easyroommate.com website warns of fraud saying anyone asking for payment through the Western Union was "always a scammer" and was usually working from overseas.

They advise people looking for a flat to never send a rental deposit without seeing the apartment first.

The Kiwi nanny used the same French website to find another apartment which did not turn out to be a scam. She said she was thinking of reporting the incident to police.

HOW IT'S DONE
* Scammers obtain victims' email addresses from legitimate websites.
* Offer the person an apartment and send photos of it.
* Send a copy of their supposed passport and ask for copy of the victims'.
* Say they are out of the country so are unable to show the apartment.
* Ask for an amount to be deposited into their account via a Western Union transfer in return for the keys.
* Cease contact with the victim and use his or her passport and other details as a form of identification to scam the next person.