New Fraud Method Against Real Estate Agents in Adana

A new fraud method targeting real estate agents has emerged in the city. Allegedly, fraudsters call real estate agents and introduce themselves as representatives of the listing portals. The accounts of real estate agents who click on the link sent saying 'We are doing a system update' are compromised. Fraudsters then publish low-priced and attractive fake real estate advertisements from the accounts they have seized and demand a deposit from citizens. Then, using the same method, they call the real estate agent a day later, say that they gave a deposit for the advertisement, and present themselves as victims, and this time they target the real estate agents with a second move.

THEY POST AN ADVERTISEMENT OF AN IMAGINARY FLAT AND FIRST ASK THE CITIZENS FOR A DEPOSIT.

Adana Chamber of Realtors Tradesmen Ülkü Uçar said that they have recently received very serious complaints from their colleagues on this issue and said, "They upload especially beautiful houses to the real estate agent's listing site at very attractive prices and then commit deposit fraud. Let's say, a flat worth 30 thousand liras is written as 15 thousand liras. Of course, when the citizen sees this, he does not want to miss it. They say, 'If you send a deposit immediately, we will reserve this flat for you.' However, it is an imaginary flat, such a flat does not exist." "They defraud someone within half an hour until our real estate agent friend becomes aware of the deposit fraud on his website. Then they start calling our real estate agent friends, saying 'We sent you a deposit.' However, our friends actually have nothing to do with these people and the ad. Therefore, both our citizens and our real estate agent friends become victims. We immediately direct our friends to file a criminal complaint to the prosecutor's office."

BEWARE OF ADVERTISEMENTS PUBLISHED WITH PRICES MUCH BELOW THE MARKET VALUE

Emphasizing that with the opening of universities, especially students' need for accommodation will increase and fraudsters can turn this into an opportunity, Uçar said, "A very serious number of university students will come to the city, schools will open, people need accommodation. For this, they look at the advertisement portals. Citizens need to be careful about the advertisements published at prices well below the market value. Especially if the value of a real estate is 30 thousand liras for a well-furnished house, but if 10-15 thousand liras is written in the advertisement, they must have a question mark in their minds and without verifying that advertisement." "They should definitely not send a deposit, and our real estate agent friends should definitely not click on that link when they say 'We are looking for them from the advertisement portals' and are sent a link," he said.

'THE PHOTOS WERE AS IF THEY WERE CREATED WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE'

Real estate agent Ayşe Naz Karacelil (32) said, "They said they called us from an advertisement portal. They said, 'We are updating the system, do not enter the system for a while, we will update your system and make it more visible.' My wife and I accepted the notification we received. The next day, we saw that an advertisement that did not belong to us had been shared on our real estate website. The photographs of this real estate advertisement seemed to have been created by artificial intelligence."

'THEY DISAPPEARED'

Stating that they learned that they were not aware of such an update when they called the advertisement portal, Karacelil said, "We got our site back within a day. Therefore, none of our citizens were victimized. However, a person called us from a number and said that they had given us a deposit for the house in the published advertisement. We told this person that we went to the police station and that if he was a victim, he should accompany us and they disappeared. When this happened, we realized that the person who said he gave the deposit was also guilty and was in this fraud situation."

“THERE ARE REAL ESTATE COMPANIES IN THE TARGET”

Real estate agent Süleyman Karacelil (47) said, "A new fraud network has been established. Real estate companies are now the target. These people are trying to defraud first our people and then the real estate tradesmen. I advise our colleagues to be careful. Thank God, because we were alert and careful, none of our citizens were victimized, and neither were we."