Warning on the increase in mortgage scams with fake brokers and fake loan offers

Despite a slight improvement, the real estate market remains complicated and many French people continue to turn to brokers to try to get a loan. In this context, the ACPR and the Banque de France are warning about scams that are currently rife in this sector. “These scams are based in their vast majority on the usurpation of the identity of brokers and credit institutions authorized to operate in France”wrote the Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority in a press release on Wednesday, September 4.

This administrative authority attached to the Bank of France and which controls the banking sectors notes in fact a “increase in recent weeks of false offers of real estate loans or credit redemption which entail a risk of significant losses for the victims”.

The National Chamber of Financial Expert Councils (CNCEF) explains that with regard to real estate credit, “The modus operandi of the scammers is to create a fake credit comparison site or to broadcast advertisements on social networks, to collect contact details and then to approach them by telephone and email, to ask the victims after signing the fake credit offer to pay their personal contribution by transfer to accounts which are sometimes opened with the establishments whose identity is usurped” and “to simply disappear with the sums paid”.

Côme Robet is the president of this approved professional association of brokers and himself a broker within a firm. He was able to personally observe these scams: “For my part, there was a wave where I had almost two to three calls per week from people who explained to me that they wanted to know where their file was, people I had never seen.”

“I have cases of people who really went all the way, I remember in particular one person who lost 50,000 euros.”

Côme Robet, president of the CNCEF

to franceinfo

Côme Robet filed a complaint because the scammers were using his name and the brand of his firm to offer attractive deals, “by offering much lower rates and at the time of signing at the notary, they asked clients to send their contribution to a supposed escrow account but from the broker. The false broker recovered the money at that time and disappeared.”

The president of the CNCEF was even surprised that some victims could have been trapped, but ultimately sees a simple explanation for this. : “The promise was good… Over 25 years we were at almost 4.50% and then we were offering them a Belgian bank at 2%.”

However, the scam can be unmasked provided that you are vigilant on several points. First, the CNCEF reminds that a broker must be registered with Orias, the single register of insurance, banking and finance intermediaries.

Each broker therefore has an Orias number that they often display on their website or business cards. You can therefore check that the broker is indeed registered on the Orias website. You can also check that they are members of one of the six professional associations approved by the ACPR. Without this membership, a broker cannot practice. There is also an ACPR blacklist listing email addresses reported as scams. You can therefore ensure that your broker is not on it.

Be careful, however, as fake brokers sometimes display the names and Orias numbers of real brokers. The best protection is therefore to remember that a broker is in no way authorized to collect your contribution during a transaction. “We have absolutely no right to collect the funds” hammers Côme Robet “apart from his fees, which are collected upon final signing at the notary’s office”. In other words, this point should be the ultimate red light. If a broker asks you for a transfer, stop the procedure immediately. If in doubt, you can always contact your bank or notary.