DH's Grandmother has been acting as Power of Attorney for an old family friend who's now in a nursing home, and has been co-ordinating sale of her house. Sale was nearly complete and went round the other day to find keys didn't work in lock, and then some people emerged from house to her surprise. Seems that some cheeky scammer has clocked the house has been empty a while, broken in, changed the locks, and had advertised it as a rental property on Gumtree. People moving in had forked out £1000 for deposit and rent, and now nowhere to live. As this was being sorted, another couple turned up, and guess what, they're also expecting to move in with their new tenancy agreement! Both couples were shocked obviously, but generally okay with Grandmother. She managed to get locks changed back to secure property. Friend went round a day or so later, and the scamming gits had broken in again and changed the locks once more!
Police been informed and things obviously, but they don't seem massively interested, and I can imagine it'd actually be quite hard to track them down. Said to both couples that no realistic prospect of either getting their £1k back either.
It's a bit of a manky house too as not been touched since about 1950 and lady was a heavy smoker, so must have been pretty desperate to want to live there in first place. Goes to show a bit of scepticism and diligence can be worthwhile in these matters.