A right good Rodgering and the £500 service charge...

[Hiphopapotamus4]

Sorry for not coming back sooner with an update. To be honest I was a bit creeped out that more than one of you had looked on Rightmove at every single house for sale in the entire county. I mean, there are literally thousands, who has the time for that?!
But also I didn't want to be like the Victorian safe poster and some of you did offer some helpful suggestions so I am back.

The bad news is, this is looking more like a scam. The council don't have any record of it and the local landowners and parish council know nothing either.
Roger called a street meeting and the 10 houses that pay agreed that a "man from the council" had come round years ago to explain what it was for and they have all paid it since. The other house that doesn't pay and us are much newer to the street which explains why we don't pay and neither of our solicitors mentioned anything when purchasing.
Some of them have a direct debit set up and some of them send a cheque. The bank details and address are different to the council tax ones
Roger has reported this to the police and I'm awaiting further updates from him.
Some of them want to keep paying it because they are convinced it's real and don't want to get behind on their payments. Two of them think we are just kicking up a fuss to try and get out of paying it

The general consensus at the end of the meeting was that it might be a scam, but it might not be. I'm convinced that it is

Sad news all round really (but Rodger did come and now my lawn with his new mower!)

Good on yer OP

Yay for Hiphopapotamus4 - and for Roger, ready to defend the denizens of your wee corner of the world with his lawnmower...

I was reading the last thread thinking it surely had to be a scam, but hoping it wasn't for the sake of the residents (& of course hoping OP'd not have to pay for whatever magical-mysterious reason fitted Legitimate Mystery Charge Best - ideally that it would be lifted & refunded as an error or similar). Is all a bit nauseating thinking of Scummy Scammer living off savings of vulnerable elderly people - as PPs have said, they may well have targeted other homes in the area. Hopefully as part of their investigation the police will check that out.

My grandad was robbed towards the end of his life by a man claiming to be from the waterboard - he'd a fake ID & got my elderly grandfather who clearly struggled to do the stairs to go about the several floors of his Victorian house & turn on all the taps & flush the loo supposedly so the water pressure could be checked. Grandad was devastated to have been tricked - but he'd done everything right, it was a sophisticated operation. Utter bastard. I sincerely hope that he's crippled by arthritis & struggles along with heart failure & hearing loss for many years - but is considered fit for work, obviously. Because karma. And as there were doubtless many other elderly victims, bring on other ailments like continence issues, COPD & cataracts. Bastard twuntweasel arsebadger.

Really REALLY hope the scammer can be caught & brought to justice. Hiphop you're awesome for not just ignoring what was going on but deciding to investigate & to look out for your neighbours. As someone officially allowed to award Brownie Points, you deserve lots of them. Yes.

🚗 👀

£500 a year I think

GardenGeek I think £500 a month would have raised an eyebrow.

Wow, thank you for coming back and updating! Quite horrified that it has turned out to be such a scam, but so relieved that you have uncovered it (if indeed the police do verify it's a scam).
I also hope that they catch the perpetrator - and maybe, as someone else has suggested, they have done this on other streets full of elderly residents as well, so you may have helped more than just your neighbours.

Have and and for your work, Hiphop!

Well done for uncovering it. People hate to admit they've been scammed so I'm not surprised there is resistance. We all like to think we wouldn't fall for a con. Hope the police can track through the bank account. Hopefully as its been going on for so long, so successfully, the scammers guard will be down.

How many years HAS this been going on?

Oh goodness. How scary if it is a scam.

Had a relative involved in one (one of the 419 'kindly send me a thousand pounds in order to release your share of Prince X's final estate' ones, the ones you wonder who on earth would ever believe ), and the last I heard, he still thinks it was legit, just that he ran out of other people's money to send and therefore never got access. it was just impossible for him to cope with the idea that he'd been scammed despite every single person he'd ever asked telling him it was a con. Very normal and very depressing.

Someone needs to contact the previous owners of OP's house and the other one that is new and doesn't pay. They may have been victims of this scam too. :(

OP Surely if some of the householders are sending a cheque a) they will know who the payee is and b) their address!

Surely these 2 massive clues cannot have escaped Roger ?

Do you know these details Hipho?

Wow, well done OP, I hope they get the scammers.

Omg

Well done op!

My parents moved my elderly grandad in with them after he nearly paid money to a scammer. Luckily they realised and stopped him but they realised he wasn't really in control of his finances.

I am thinking that rather than an out and out scam, its more of a very very dodgy business as mentioned above. So when collared they can say that each resident chose to sign up to this agreement, rather than it just being plain theft. It would explain how people can pay by direct debit too.

Do you think your neighbours would be willing to spend some of the £500 they're saving on a leaflet campaign for the area? In case anyone else has been caught.

When it's confirmed as a scam obviously!

I imagine banking records will uncover the extent of the scam. It shouldn't be too difficult for the police to work with the back to identify the origins of goodness knows how many £500 payments and then check any other accounts held by the scammer.

Forgot to say: warning others can be a comfort as it means you weren't one not only a few to fall for it so it was very well done but you were one of the clever ones who figured it out. Even if that's not reality it tend to be seen like that.

Well done OP. Thank you for coming back with an update. Hope the scammers get caught.

They sent letters out from the 'council' each yeah I struggle to see how the theiving barstatds can explain as not an out and out scam!

This sounds more like Council incompetence than a scam to me. The different bank account means nothing. Councils have numerous accounts for numerous sources of income. The fact that the council couldn't identify what the money is for is typical incompetence/ poor record keeping. I think the residents will be entitled to a refund but I don't think there is a criminal mastermind behind it.