A New Scam In London's Property Market

July 13, 2010 - PRLog -- One of the newest forms of scam has appeared in London. Very simple, however very effective. When a person wants to rent an apartment from private owners, they ask him to make a Western Union transaction. Wait! It is not what you are thinking – transacting money to an unknown person – this transaction has a completely different concept.

You have to transact the money to let’s say your mother -  just to prove that you do have available funds. Then the scammers ask you to send a scanned Western Union receipt o them as a proof that you are liquid and you can rent the flat. However once you have done that they are gone, with you money.

How does this work? Western Union requires the receiver of the money to know the code given to the sender (which is printed on the transaction receipt), so once you have scanned he receipt, he scammer knows the name of the receiver and the identification code. In this way he goes to the nearest Western Union branch and picks the money up.

If you wonder how is this possible? Western Union has been invented to help people receive money if they have been robbed or lost their wallets (Locally or abroad), so Western Union does not require any identification except your name, address and the transaction code. Once a person has the transaction receipt, they can practically do anything, withdraw the whole sum of money and disappear. Say 'bye, bye' to your money, and any hope the thief will get caught. The scammers usually claim to be living abroad, and give you a mobile number, which redirects somewhere and you end up with a giant phone bill as well, should you try calling them.

This scam has been gaining speed in London, however it won’t be surprising if it starts appearing in other parts of the world.  Check out more links about related scam issues on http://www.italkcash.com