'I was evicted and lost £20,000 in a rental scam'

A man said he felt “embarrassed and ashamed” after losing almost £20,000 of his inheritance in a rental scam and being evicted from his flat three weeks after he moved in.

Craig Spokes, 36, from Northampton, paid a year’s rent upfront for a flat in London to Samy Daim, who he believed was the landlord. Yet less than a month after moving in, Mr Spokes was told to leave and all his possessions were left on the street.

Mr Daim, 27, has since not responded to Mr Spokes or to the BBC’s requests for comment.

Action Fraud, the police reporting body for scams, said it was not recommending an investigation into the case.

In October 2023, Mr Spokes was looking to move to London after leaving a career as a cruise ship entertainer.

He said Mr Daim had told him he was the landlord of a flat in Bloomsbury, which could be secured for a £500 a month discount if a year’s rent was paid upfront.

Mr Daim was in fact a tenant himself, renting the flat from the real landlord, but he gave Mr Spokes the keys to the property and allowed him to move in.

The BBC has seen court documents that show Mr Daim owed more than £14,000 in rent to the real landlord and this had led to bailiffs being sent to the property.

The flat was listed on a letting agency website, but rather than using the company’s payment system Mr Spokes transferred £19,500 directly to Mr Daim to cover a year’s rent and deposit.

The money had come from his inheritance after his father Barry died of cancer.

Yet as he got ready for work one morning three weeks after moving, Mr Spokes was evicted by bailiffs instructed by the real landlord.

“By 08:30 everything was out on the streets,” he said. “It was a whirlwind and I was in such a state of distress. I was made to feel like a criminal.”

The experience has had a lasting impact on Mr Spokes who said he “felt so embarrassed and ashamed that I had fallen for this scam”.

He said for a period “days would go by and I couldn’t even go out”.

Mr Daim has not responded to Mr Spokes since the eviction. His social media profiles appear to show a jet-set lifestyle.

He has not responded to BBC attempts to contact him.

Mr Spokes was told by the Metropolitan Police to report what had happened to Action Fraud, the national reporting centre.

Action Fraud does not have investigative powers, but assesses which cases to pass on to police forces for investigation.

This case was not passed on and Mr Spokes said he felt “let down” by police and that it had been treated as if it was “not that serious of a crime”.

Action Fraud said reports were assessed against criteria including “the vulnerability of the victim”.

It added that it prioritised “reports most likely to present an investigative opportunity for local police forces, those where a crime is ongoing and those that present the greatest threat and harm to the victim or victims concerned”.

In 2023 Action Fraud classified 5,093 reports as rental fraud.

Mr Spokes said he also felt “let down” by his bank, Kroo, which said it will not repay the money.

Kroo said it has “a number of controls in place to manage financial crime and protect customer funds”.

Mr Spokes said he felt like he had “double-checked” everything before transferring the money, but all the information he had been provided “was part of the scam”.

Pat Coomber-Wood, the chief executive officer of Citizens Advice West Northamptonshire and Cherwell, said anyone feeling under pressure to sign a contract should “put the brakes on – it is better to miss out than be scammed”.

She said a land registry search, which costs £3, could determine whether the person you were dealing with owned the property.