A 58-year-old dad has lost thousands of pounds after buying a holiday home in Bulgaria which turned out to be s scam. The man, who has asked not to be named, paid £7,000 for the three-bedroom home in Dolna Lipnitsa after finding it on eBay.
Throughout lockdown he paid £300 a month for the property and was sent a set of keys. But when he was finally able to travel to Bulgaria he found it was a scam.
He told the ECHO : "I saw an advertisement on eBay and I wasn't in a position to pay outright for it so I sent an email and said 'can I do monthly payments until I can get over there?' Because with covid I couldn't get over there.'
"I've been to Bulgaria so many times with the kids, and my daughter was diagnosed with cancer not so long ago - 4/5 months ago - and I was doing it really for the kids, so that if something happened to me they could go there and just chill out.
"I got friendly with this woman selling the property, I spoke to her so many times, she was lovely. I was paying her each month then I finally went over [to Bulgaria]."
When he arrived neighbours started raising alarm bells. He said: "A neighbour took me around and said you know you need to be aware. She scams so many people, she gives different keys to different people. So many properties she advertises and she doesn't even own them, she rents them."
He realised it had no electricity and half of the items included on the property listing were not there. The seller agreed to deduct £1,000 for the missing items but refused to provide the deeds of the property or show information about the electricity bills.
He said he was warned by other expats about the scam and a woman also messaged him on Facebook saying the same thing had happened to her. He said: "I feel sick, it's making me ill. I feel like an idiot. Someone has just taken me for a ride."
He said he made the payments for the holiday home as business payments from his Halifax and Barclays bank accounts, which he believed would give him protection. He has since received a refund for the money he paid from his Halifax bank account, but he said Barclays has refused to refund him the remaining £4,200.
He made a complaint against Barclays to the Financial Ombudsman with the help of High Street Solicitors.
A Barclays spokesperson said: “We’re very sorry to hear that our customer fell victim to a fraud scam and the impact this has had on his wellbeing. Having carefully reviewed this matter we’re unable to support the request for a refund.
“Our investigation concluded [name redacted] did not undertake any independent precautionary research to check if the offer promised was genuine. The protection of customer funds and data is one of our highest priorities and we confirm we did display scam warnings which included relevant information and helpful preventative checks.”
Larissa Ellis, Head of Legal Operations, explained: “Sadly, we are seeing more and more people falling victim to online scams where they are enticed into making payments for something they believe to be genuine. It is our aim to assist the Claimants in recovering their losses plus interest, along with providing a listening ear.
"We understand that some situations are difficult to discuss and it can be very upsetting being a victim of push-payment fraud, however we urge any victims of this who have complained to their bank and been refused a refund to get in touch.”
