A BASINGSTOKE lettings agency is warning people to be aware of a scam after photos of its properties were reposted online by fraudsters.

Ella Plumb, director of Greene Knight, told the Gazette they were made aware that images of a property they were trying to let had been posted in a Gumtree advert.

“The person pretended to be the property owner and it seems he was trying to get the deposit amount sent to him fraudulently,” she explained.

Thankfully, the potential victim realised something was suspicious and did not part with the £800 deposit requested in exchange for keys to the town centre property.

A second incident involved a fraudster pretending to be an elderly woman, and again requesting a deposit for a property in exchange for the keys.

Ella said: “It’s important to be careful with online adverts like this. We want to make people aware, particularly vulnerable people, that this is going on. It’s even more important now when lots of services have moved online. We have heard of people handing over money in other areas.

“We can’t stop someone from taking our photos and putting them online elsewhere. But we can raise awareness for people who don’t know the rental process. We wouldn’t take money and hand over keys. If someone is asking for money up front before you have even viewed a property, then this should raise alarm bells.”

She added: “It’s hard to do things face-to-face at the moment but we will pick up the phone and talk to you. It’s not all done via text or email. The number we were given for the person fraudulently advertising our property, I tried calling it and it went straight to voicemail. This would ring alarm bells.

“If you’re worried or feel something is suspicious please get in touch we can help and give advice, even if it’s not our property.”

Ella said she had reported the incident to Action Fraud. She advised people to only deal with agencies directly through known property listing websites.

A spokesperson for Gumtree said: “At Gumtree, we take fraud very seriously and are totally committed to tackling scams and educating people on how to avoid them. We require that all property ads on the platform comply with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) requirements, as well as all government regulations for property advertising. We are also constantly adjusting our category filters to counteract scams. Further support and our posting policies can be found via our help desk.”