The Attorney General’s Office (GP) has warned of a rise in holiday rental scams by students or foreign nationals, stressing that the practice has “gained a lot of expression in recent weeks.”
These “fraudulent listings” are often posted on legitimate e-commerce operators as well as social media where properties are rented out at a lower price than real estate, according to a statement released on Wednesday by the PGR Cybercrime Authority. similar category and with attractive photographs.
After the first contact, those responsible for fraudulent advertising seek direct contact through other means, namely the Whatsapp application, but never by phone.
“The criminal agent (the alleged landlord) always claims that the property is immediately available, but never shows himself available for him to visit – he always claims to be abroad and often a foreign national, unable to come to Portugal. Fraudulent information is often circulated that the landlord left Portugal for work-related reasons,” PGR describes.
In many cases, in order to be able to visit the property or book in advance, victims are required to pay, usually by bank transfer to foreign accounts that are more difficult to identify the owners. The Cybercrime Authority also highlights that there have already been instances of false invoices and false reports appearing to come from referral platforms in the vacation rental sector.
“The whole process is a staging, the sole purpose of which is to create in the victim the expectation that he has found a house to rent and, for this reason, to make an advance payment of the requested amounts. This criminal phenomenon is developed by professional and organized groups whose sole purpose is fraud,” warns PGR.
The use of pre-paid phone numbers, email addresses generated for free online, or false social media profiles is a regular practice in these scams as they make it easy for the perpetrators to disappear after receiving the money. Thus, for control by the affected.
For this reason, PGR recommends “careful evaluation of real estate advertisements on the Internet, as well as any profiles of their authors, especially when all contacts are made through digital means.”
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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