Snow Pagan, 37-year-old Spanish residentwas looking for one largest apartment in Canillo to go live there with their partner when one apparently attractive offer it almost ends up being a scam. His case comes at a time when the frauds linked to the rental ads have gained sophistication and credibility, a problem on which the diary already alerted yesterday following the growing use of digital resources and artificial intelligence to build increasingly convincing false advertisements. It all started on September 28. The snow had activated alerts for receive new housing offers in the Canillo area and that morning a flat appeared with a surprisingly low price. “I saw it was cheap for that flat, but I thought anything could be”, he explains.The photographs showed an attractive home and the ad appeared published in Flats.ad for a particular He contacted them and the conversation quickly moved to whatsapp The interlocutor, who introduced himself as “Francis” i claimed to live in Romesent you an external link to continue the process. It was the key moment of the deception: the reservation of the house required a payment of 700 euros.
“They didn’t take money from me, but I wanted to warn because other people can fall”
Impersonation
Pagà, however, did not click directly. “Before doing anything I grabbed the computer and started researching what was behind that page“, he relates. The name of the portal was almost identical to a real company, but the address did not match. He located the official page and contacted them. The response confirmed his suspicions: someone was impersonating him. “I was immediately warned: ‘Do nothing, they are impersonating us’“, he recalls. The legitimate company also explained to him that the fraudulent link could be used to obtain the card details. Pagan he got to follow the process from private browsing to the moment before payment. “When I saw where it was taking me I thought: you put your card here and they already have what they want“, he explains.
The photographs also ended up giving away the deception. As he verified, they corresponded to a holiday accommodation advertised on Airbnb and not to a home available for residential rental a Andorra. Some details had already seemed strange to him. “There was even a photo of the coffee maker. This is more typical of a vacation rental than a flat to live in all year round“, she notes. When she alerted the alleged owner that she had discovered the impersonation, he blocked her. But the contact did not end. She subsequently received new messages from up to three different numbers, even with flat offers you’ve never been interested in.
The resident also warned Flats.ad. According to him, the response was quick and the next day the ad had already been removed. Then he went to the police to alert the system usedalthough she had not lost money. There he discovered that his case was not isolated. As reported Paganthe agents explained to him that they had received several similar complaints and that there were people who had transferred money. “I saw a girl with a bank statement showing the charges that had been made to her. There were people who had fallen“, he remembers.
For Pagà, the pressure to find housing is precisely what makes these ads work. “People are desperate: they give you a job, but you still don’t have a home“, he says. Especially, he points out, people who arrive for work and need to secure accommodation before settling in the country. The combination is effective: an attractive apartment, a price below the marketbelievable photographs, a direct conversation for whatsapp and an acceptable reserve. In this case it was 700 euros. Pagan he didn’t pay them because he decided to check who was behind the link first. “They didn’t take money from me, but I wanted to warn because other people can fall,” he sums up.A check before inserting the card made the difference between detecting fraud and becoming yet another victim.
THE KEYS OF THE CASE
- ATTEMPTED SCAM ON AN APARTMENT PORTAL. Snow Paganresident in Canillohe detected that the alleged rental led to a fraudulent page that asked for card details to reserve the apartment.
- ADVERTISEMENT WITH PHOTOS STOLEN FROM OTHER PORTALS. The images corresponded to a holiday accommodation published in Airbnb and they had been reused to make a false rental offer in Andorra credible.
- MORE VICTIMS REPORTING THE SAME FRAUD. According to Pagà, the police explained to him that they had already received several similar complaints and that some people had indeed lost money.
