22^nd Oct 2017

A Plymouth couple fell prey to a fake landlord when they were conned out £1,200 after the con woman had copied and pasted pictures of a property from a large online real estate portal and property website, and posted them on a Facebook page.

The unlucky couple Jenny Foster-Mitchell, 35, and Cheryl Foster-Mitchell, 28, were hoping to move out of their current home in the Plymouth area a few months ago and were excited about finding their new 'home' on a Facebook property page, unbeknown that the posting was scam.

The page included all the details of the property, the chargeable monthly rent, bills and pictures of every room in the property.

Jenny told a local newspaper that: “The house was listed at £600 per calendar month including bills. It looked perfect.

“We got in touch at the end of August by commenting on the post.

“We didn’t get a reply straight away so we sent a direct message to the landlord on Facebook asking for more details.

“We got a message back giving us more details and letting us know that pets were welcome in the house – which was perfect for us.”

The fake landlord asked if they would like to view the property and explained that at the time the letting agent had the keys so she would not let them look inside the property. She did tell them the address of the property and that they were welcome to go round and have a look at the house.

Jenny continued: “She [the fake landlord] said we could go and have a look at it through the windows to see if it was what we wanted.

“We went and had a look at it and it was exactly the same as the photos.

“We were very keen to find somewhere new and we liked it so we were happy to go ahead with it.”

Unfortunately the couple were taken in by the scam and paid one month's rent as a deposit as well as the one month's rent in advance to make sure they secured the two bedroomed property. The couple agreed to pay one month’s rent and one month’s deposit in advance to secure the two-bedroom property.

Jenny explained: “We were sent a tenancy agreement which we completed and sent back. Everything seemed normal.” Jenny became extremely suspicious when the fake landlord asked for a £400 payment on top of having already paid one month's rent and deposit, for supposed maintenance work that she had just completed.

Jenny said: “I was thinking, we shouldn't have to pay for maintenance, and this was even written into the tenancy agreement we had signed.

“But then she threatened to add the bills to the monthly rent – so we agreed.

“At this point we were getting wary, but we were so desperate to get out."

“We had made all of the other payments through online bank transfer, but this time she wanted us to use MoneyGram.

“We did attempt to make the £400 maintenance payment but MoneyGram wouldn't release it, thank god, until I spoke to them to confirm the details.

“Shortly after this, we decided to search for the property and came across it on Rightmove. That is when it all unravelled.

“We confronted the woman and she said that she didn’t like not being trusted and then blocked us."

The couple had already been scammed out of the money and worse still was that they had handed in their notice to their current landlord, luckily there was a relatively happy ending to the sad state of affairs that the couple had found themselves in.

Jenny said: “Thankfully our current landlord allowed us to retract our notice.

“They have been brilliant throughout this ordeal and have really helped us.”

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