POLICE ARREST FAKE AGENT

Property scam with a new twist

Fraud Squad detectives in Queensland are reported to have charged one man and are about to arrest another over a real estate scam with a twist. The alleged victims of this scam are developers not consumers.

According to a report in The Gold Coast Bulletin (June 25, 2003), two men approached four Gold Coast developers and came to an arrangement where they would be paid commissions by the developers for selling properties. Nothing unusual in that. However, the men later produced a number of fake buyers and reportedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from the developers. The sting was orchestrated by using deposit bonds with fake names. It seems the developers paid out the commissions before realising that the buyers were bogus.

In the brazenly dodgy world of real estate investing this is one scam which appears to have left consumers unscathed.

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