A 59-YEAR-OLD man has been arrested in Benidorm for offering holiday and long-term rental bookings for properties that he did not manage.
The scammer- of undisclosed nationality- published online adverts for lets across the city, luring in clients who paid deposits for the bogus bookings.
He has been accused of fraud, misappropriation and document forgery.
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The Policia Nacional acted after receiving complaints from some several people who were duped in the same way.
In one of the first cases, the victim said she was interested in a long-term Benidorm rental and was put into contact with the bogus landlord via a co-worker.
A deal was closed including paying a €650 deposit and signing a contract which saw the lease allegedly start on April 1.
A month before, she got a message from the man saying that the owners no longer wanted to rent out the property and promised to refund her deposit.
That didn’t happen as she received a variety of excuses and he ended up blocking her phone number.
A friend of the victim also did business with the man, who he defrauded in the same way.
The fraudster also tricker the owner of a flat in the same block that he lived in by agreeing to act as a keyholder while she agreed to let some of his relatives to stay there for a few days.
The owner had inherited the property from an aunt and when she turned up there after a few months to leave some belongings, she discovered that the accommodation was permanently occupied.
She waited outside until a couple in their early 60s arrived and told her that they lived there and had been €700 per month in rent to the bogus landlord.
Other scams included a Gijon resident being conned out of €350 for a Benidorm apartment holiday stay.
He arrived at the building only to find out that he could not contact the landlord and the concierge told him that he was not the only person to have been tricked.
The scammer also nabbed a Dutch victim over the same of a garage space in Benidorm.
The victim owned a property in his same apartment block and he ‘negotiated’ the parking space deal on behalf of the client for €22,000.
A deposit of €2,200 was paid and the Dutch client booked plane and hotel tickets to travel to the city to formalise the deal.
Days before, however, excuses started to be trundled out, including that the sale could not be completed because the seller had ‘health issues’.
The Dutch victim discovered that the contract had been forged and offered the man an amicable solution by demanding a full refund plus his travel and hotel costs- totalling €4,300.
He was not forthcoming, resulting in a police complaint being filed.
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