Kasaz reports that real estate scams affect more than just the buyer

Kasaz has detected an increase of up to 400% in recent months of real estate scams directed at private property owners who post their ads in the most popular portals for sale and rent of floors.

The real estate portal has detected that the majority of scams come from spammers that direct private messages to sellers. Some of the scams detected are: ensuring an immediate sale of the property as long as they pay a supposed commission - nonexistent - through Airbnb or other platforms outside the usual real estate portals. Kasaz has also detected that scammers pose as prestigious real estate agencies, both existing and non-existent, which claim to be able to sell the property quickly and at a better price as long as a client fee, commission or costs are paid. of real estate non-existent.

Kasaz warns that another of the scams that have been detected may even have criminal consequences for the same scammed owners because, without knowing it, they may be participating in money laundering activities. The methodology is as follows: a potential buyer enters more than what is required as a guarantee, between 20 and 50% more, but sometimes even up to double or triple. Goodwill causes the owner to reimburse the scammer for the excess amount of the guarantee, but in doing so, they are participating in money laundering without knowing it. Kasaz recommends that if this happens to go to the police as soon as the entry occurs.

According to the CEO and Founder of Kasaz, Sébastien Marion, a large part of the responsibility of the security of the users falls on the portals, which have failed miserably in this task: "The large real estate portals in Spain decided to put the benefit of the sellers first against the benefit of the final consumer". Marion criticizes the fact that at no time have the most popular portals taken any measures to control the quality of the ads, nor have any efforts been made to follow even the most basic transactions, such as bonds.

To counteract this lack of transparency that exists in the real estate sector over the Internet, Kasaz has decided to strengthen the security of the users of the platform by implementing recognition systems for spammers. In this way, the proptech becomes the pioneer portal in the protection of advertisers.

Contrary to the 'bulletin board' philosophy adopted by most real estate portals in Spain, Kasaz ranks as the only real estate portal that guarantees the quality of its published ads, since they have to pass a screening system. In addition, the data of the houses are compared with the cadastral registry. Kasaz also contacts directly the owners of the houses, all this with an eye on the end user and his comfort when it comes to finding a flat.

In search of this quality, and in order to improve the real estate sector in Spain, Kasaz also formalized a month ago an agreement with the real estate network Coldwell Banker, with whom he shares the interest for the quality of the advertised offers, for this, the announcements of the dwellings of the real estate network will have the double guarantee of the two firms.

SOURCE Kasaz
Edited by V. Haviland

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