Jersey rent scams becoming 'significant problem'

The force have not made any arrests relating to property scams

The number of islanders being conned by false listings of properties to rent has become a "significant problem", officials confirmed.

Jersey Police said people have been conned out of money when trying to rent a home from online listings.

The force have dealt with more than 20 cases in the last two years, with more than £22,500 known to have been lost.

Scammers have been stealing people's online identities to falsely advertise properties.

David Turnbull, inspector of community policing, said: "The scammer will contact them, say they've got a lot of people looking at this property, you're going to have to act very quickly and I think you need to leave a deposit so you don't miss out.

"Normally around a couple of hundred pounds and we've seen some in excess of a thousand pounds."

'Absolutely horrified'

One woman was scammed out of £600 when viewing a flat online, hoping to move to Jersey from the UK.

The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the situation was devastating.

She said: "I felt sick, I felt dizzy, I felt absolutely horrified. I felt robbed, I felt cheated, I was so angry.

"I would have loved to sit in the room with whoever this person is and say 'why? Why have you done this to me? What have I done to you?'"

A marketing professional who lives in Israel found out his identity was being used to falsely advertise property in Jersey and Guernsey.

Samuel Scott said he had never heard of the Channel Islands until he received social media messages asking if he owned property there.

He said: "To be honest, I didn't know what the Channel Islands were, so I had to Google that.

"This shows how easy it is for someone to click right, save as, take your profile photo, copy and paste your biographical data on social and create an image in five seconds and use that for any purpose they want."

Mr Turnbull said the force had not arrested any online offenders yet.

"All the enquires we get we will investigate, all the incidents we have had are off island, but as of yet we haven't made any arrests related to a property scam," he said.

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