With the tightening of conditions for access to loans and real estate credits, the Banque de France is warning against a scam that is multiplying, TF1 Info reported.
The real estate sector is in full crisis. The conditions for accessing loans or mortgages are increasingly complicated, and scammers have found the goldmine. A victim testified to this with TF1. In April, while she was looking for an apartment, she was fooled by a fake broker.
It all started on the Internet, “We did a credit simulation on a site which was a comparator and which immediately directed us to a broker”she explains. If the scammer gets all of this woman’s information, and builds a credit file, he asked her to“send the personal contribution to an account that had to be created because they told us that they worked with European banks, but which have branches in France”she continued.
12,000 euros swindled on average
Her savings – 99,000 euros, deposited in a bank account in Spain, the victim never hears from the broker again. “These are the savings of a lifetime,” laments the scammed woman. Even though she filed a complaint, she has little hope of getting her money back.
“There is no typical profile, anyone can be a victim”warned Caroline Bontems, head of department at the Directorate for the Control of Commercial Practices (ACPR), to the channel. It was this organization that raised the alarm about this scam. On average, people who are scammed lose 12,000 euros. To protect yourself, Caroline Bontems recommends “verify the identity of the person contacting you by calling the headquarters of the establishment they claim to represent” and go to the website abe-infoservice.fr, which lists fake brokerage companies.
published on September 18 at 2:55 p.m., Guillaume Dosda, 6Medias
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