充当房东--骗子的新招数

Lazaros Kesoglou came to the UK from Greece three weeks ago. He thought he'd secured a rented room in a shared flat in London's Holborn from a woman called Emily Brown. As soon as he arrived in the UK he went to the flat. It was only then that Lazaros learned Emily didn't live there and the flat was actually owned by someone else. It wasn't for rent at all and the Emily Brown he thought he was dealing with probably doesn't even exist.

It gets worse. Before he arrived in the UK, Emily had asked Lazaros to prove he had the funds to pay for the flat. To do this, she asked him to use Western Union to transfer the first month's rent and the deposit to someone he knew - even to himself if he wanted. All Emily wanted to see was the receipt for the transfer which would show Lazaros did actually have enough money. So Lazoros transferred ￡660 to himself and sent Emily the receipt as she requested. When Lazaros discovered that his flat wasn't for rent, and that Emily Brown didn't exist, he went back to Western Union to retrieve his ￡660. But it had gone. Someone had already withdrawn the money.

Western Union is the biggest money transfer company in the UK and therefore most of our case studies have used Western Union to transfer money.

Nineteen-year-old Alexandra Sheppard saw a flat on the internet site Gumtree. She too was asked for proof of funds and sent ￡1,350 to her sister via Western Union. When they went to retrieve the money four days later it had gone.

Andrea Crookes and her daughter Nicola Mason were taken in too, after Nicola got a new job in London. When Nicola arrived at the flat she thought she'd rented in Islington, there was no one to meet her. She asked at the shop downstairs but they were sure that somebody else lived there.

As usual, Nicola had been asked for proof she'd be able to pay the rent. So her mum had transferred ￡1,100 to her via Western Union. When she went to get it back, that money had already been collected.

So how is the scam working?
It's thought scammers use the details on the receipt sent to them to create a fake ID in order to pick up the money. The scammers' email addresses were traced back to Nigeria so they may even be receiving the money from one of the 320,000 Western Union branches around the world and not even from the UK.

Tom Craig is a counter fraud expert. He's not surprised that the scammers have taken advantage of Western Union as the scammers can't be traced: "Basically it's moving cash. You can't really identify the end receiver. Although you should but you can't. It's just like giving cash away."

Western Union told Watchdog that it's important that customers "observe the clear guidance and don't share private information such as transaction numbers or copies of the documentation related to a person to person money transfer with any other party".

Western Union stresses that although it does, with police, investigate all reported cases of fraud, it can't refund any money that's been stolen. It's confident it has a "robust fraud prevention programme" in place, but points out that consumers "are and always will be the first and best line of defence against consumer fraud, especially when it comes to protecting and safeguarding their personal data and identity information".

When we contacted Gumtree about the scam it told us that it's an "industry-wide problem that affects a small number of our users". It says that "Gumtree is meant for connecting local people to then trade face-to-face" and that it has "boosted the prominence of our safety messages in the rentals section". Gumtree told us that it has "systems in place to prevent known fraudsters from using the site and also to identify potentially fraudulent activity".