A dad-of-four has been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after he purchased 'glamorous' family holiday home he found advertised on eBay.
David, 58, - who has requested not to use his real name - decided to buy a three bed holiday home in the village of Dolna Lipnitsa in Bulgaria, report Liverpool Echo.
After coming across an advertisement of the place on eBay during lockdown, the dad from Skelmserdale, Lancashire was sold.
The 58-year-old says he was in regular contact with the apparent owner, who went out of her way to reassure him the property was in good condition.
Upon receiving this reassurance, he agreed to pay the £7,000 asking price in form of monthly instalments of £300 via bank transfer.
However, it wasn't until David actually went over to Bulgaria in May to lay his eyes on the holiday home for the first time.
And, as soon as he arrived to the village, he realised he'd been scammed.
Recalling his shock, David 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]."
Despite being sent a pair of keys to the property on arrival, alarm bells started ringing when he spoke to the neighbours.
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."
And once inside the property, things went from worse to worser. David said he realised the holiday home had no electricity, and half the items which were included in the original property listing were missing.
Immediately, the dad contacted the scammer - who cheekily agreed to deduct £1,00 from the items that were not there. However, unsurprisingly, she refused to provide the deeds of the property or show information about the electricity bills.
Following his time in Bulgaria, David is now urging others to be careful. He is using his bad expereince to warn by other expats about the scam, and says a woman also messaged him on Facebook saying the same thing had happened to her.
Speaking about his own personal experience, he said: "I feel sick, it's making me ill. I feel like an idiot. Someone has just taken me for a ride."
David 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.
David now made a complaint against Barclays to the Financial Ombudsman with the help of Liverpool-based High Street Solicitors. High Street Solicitors is urging anyone in similar circumstances, where their bank has refused to refund them, to get in touch with them where they can provide advice and support in submitting a formal complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.
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.”
