Be aware of fraudsters renting houses for cash deposits
Police warm people to be careful of fraudsters pretending to be selling or renting houses in the Hercules area.
Police are yet to arrest a man who scammed another man of R7 600, pretending to be renting him a house.
According to Johan van Rensburg he gave the man who scammed him R7 600 for a deposit on a house he wanted to rent out.
“This man’s son goes to the same school as my sister-in-law’s child. I was skeptical of giving him the deposit money at first but he convinced me that I can trust him.”
Van Rensburg trusted the man, who allegedly turned out to be a fraudster. It is alleged that the man has scammed other people before.
“The man’s sister-in-law told us it is not the first time he scams someone, there are other people he has scammed too,” said van Rensburg.
He opened a case of fraud against the man because he has been promising to pay him back, but has not.
“He calls me every day to tell me that he will return half of my money but he never shows up. He sometimes says he will come by my residence to talk, but he never does,” explained van Rensburg.
He said all he wanted was for police to arrest the man. Police were apparently supposed to arrest him on Monday but never got to it, according to van Rensburg.
“The officer asked me to give him some time and he will arrest the man. I just want to warn people to be aware of such things happening and this man.”
Police have in the past warned people to be aware of house scams as they do have several such cases reported to them.
“We do have cases like this. We investigate the case before we can arrest the suspect. We have to connect the suspect to the crime. If we arrest anyone without connecting them with a crime, the case will be withdrawn in court.”
Msimango said in such incidents, the police open a case of fraud or theft by false pretenses.
The man who scammed van Rensburg and apparently other people, is firmly built, has tattoos on his hands and legs and has dark hair.
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