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\n Eimer McAuley<\/p>\n
A STUDENT HAS been scammed out of \u20ac1,400 in a rental scam involving a Dublin property used in an almost identical hoax just two months earlier.<\/p>\n
Daniel, a Portuguese student who was due to begin a degree at Trinity College Dublin, believed he had secured a room at the Crumlin property after viewing it in person and paying a deposit and his first month\u2019s rent.<\/p>\n
He had originally found the room on Daft.ie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the property is available purely as a short-term holiday accommodation for a period of days or months on Booking.com, and those who showed Daniel around had no apparent right to rent it out.<\/p>\n
The same address was used in June to scam a software engineer of almost \u20ac2,000 after he responded to a room advertised on Daft.ie, in a case previously reported by The Irish Times.<\/p>\n
The property\u2019s owner told the paper he was \u201chorrified\u201d that it had been used in the scam. Booking.com said it would review that case and could block the customer involved from making future reservations.<\/p>\n
\u00c9amonn McEleney, whose deceased brother\u2019s estate owns the property, said the repeat incident raises questions about the checks carried out by rental platforms, and that it is \u201cawful\u201d that this has happened to another person.<\/p>\n
How the scam operates<\/p>\n
Daniel had already attended around 10 viewings while searching for a room ahead of the academic year when he responded to a man called \u2018Jedidah\u2019, who advertised a \u20ac900 room with an en suite bathroom on Daft.ie.<\/p>\n
Although it was outside his ideal price range, Daniel decided to view it given the rental market. Jedidah told him over WhatsApp that his brother \u2018Marcus\u2019 would show him around on 19 August.<\/p>\n
Daniel said he was surprised to find \u201ca bit of a run-down place\u201d but when Marcus arrived \u201che seemed like a ncie enough guy\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The building has a sign outside that says \u2018Christian Secular Foundation\u2019, which is located on the ground floor of the building. The foundation has no connection to the alleged scam.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the viewing, Jedidah texted Daniel to say Marcus had been \u2018fond\u2019 of him. When Daniel said he had chosen another room for \u20ac800, Jedidah offered him a smaller room for \u20ac700.<\/p>\n
Daniel asked for his deposit back on the other room and transferred \u20ac1,400 \u2013 the majority of his savings \u2013 to an account under the name Lauren K, whom Jedidah said was his mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Daniel contacted Jedidah the following day about moving his belongings in, replies became infrequent. On the Sunday before he was due to move, the WhatsApp account blocked him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realised I\u2019d been scammed, which I was shocked by, as the man had really made it seem as though he lived there, and I had even asked for a contract with a handwritten signature in an attempt to protect myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Daniel then discovered the property was listed on Booking.com and contacted McEleney.<\/p>\n
McEleney told The Journal that the property had previously been targeted in a similar incident and that family members were now monitoring who came and went.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be the same person carrying out the scam,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said prospective tenants should ask to see identification from people conducting viewings and argued that Daft.ie should verify that advertisers own properties or have permission to rent them out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should ask for some documentation that the person that\u2019s showing the flat owns it or has got a right to operate it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McEleney also believes those behind the scams may be using short-term bookings to gain access to properties before directing prospective tenants there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t give any address, I think, as far as I know,\u201d he said. \u201cThey advertise something on Sundrive Road, and then they lead them there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said platforms should do more to establish whether advertisers have a legitimate connection to properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Daft are taking ads from people in fictitious names with no property, and basically it\u2019s easy enough to check who owns the property,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re not doing it. And they should be doing the checks really.\u201d<\/p>\n
Student plans to leave Ireland<\/p>\n
Daniel has reported the incident to garda\u00ed, Booking.com and Daft.ie.<\/p>\n
He said he had been told his best chance of recovering the money was for garda\u00ed to trace those responsible, but contact from garda\u00ed had since gone cold.<\/p>\n
After staying on an air mattress at a friend\u2019s house in recent weeks, Daniel has decided to leave Ireland because of the financial strain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand how this could happen twice with the same property, and how there is so little recourse in Ireland and so little chance to get your money back if something like this happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said other countries with competitive rental markets use platforms where deposits are held by a third party until tenants confirm they have access to the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think something like that should be used here,\u201d he said, adding that Ireland\u2019s highly competitive rental market made it vulnerable to scams.
Daft.ie and Booking.com have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
Journal Media Ltd has shareholders in common with Daft.ie publisher Distilled Media Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eimer McAuley A STUDENT HAS been scammed out of \u20ac1,400 in a rental scam involving a Dublin property…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3664,615,536,807,61,60,43,18517,11259],"class_list":["post-660080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-daft-ie","tag-dublin","tag-fraud","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-rental-scam","tag-the-morning-lead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}