Accommodation scams are still a major concern in Sunnyside despite police measures to curb the fraud in the area, Sunnyside police spokesperson Sergeant Asnath Malatsi said on Monday.
Since last year police has been on a drive to eradicate illegal advertising posters around the area and to warn residents against the fraud. The scam entails criminals persuading people looking for accommodation to rent to pay them deposits. They then disappear with the money.
They paste bogus adverts on trees, street signs, building walls and sometimes even use well-known adverting media to persuade residents looking for accommodation to contact them. The advertisers claim to have flats available to rent and provide details where they could be contacted.
Malatsi said several complaints about accommodation scams has been reported since the beginning of the year.
The scam has been around for several years, costing residents thousands of rands.
Police said the criminals used different tactics to gain trust from people wanting to rent accommodation. The most common practice is to show people flats about to be evacuated.
The criminals then provide victims the date on which they claim the flat would be available for moving in and ask for a deposit, supposedly to reserve the accommodation.
They have defrauded a number of people who only discovered they were the victims of a scam once they tried to move into the accommodation promised.
Tshepo Molefe, a student, found out about the scam when police warned residents in the area on Monday.
Molefe was about to look for accommodation on an advertisement pasted on a tree on the corner of Leyds and De Rapper streets in Sunnyside.
“I came here to look for affordable accommodation since I don’t have much money,” Molefe said.
The police operation to fight the scam faced several problems. Of the factors, it included the high number of newcomers who are unaware of this crime. Criminals also continued replacing illegal posters with new ones immediately after police removed the old ones.
Most new people in the area are students coming to Pretoria every year to study at one of the several tertiary institutions in the city.
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