My complaint here is NOT about gumtree.com, though it all began on this site.

What I want to do is to WARN people when trying to find apartments via sites like gumtree.com with my story.

I was looking for an apartment in the UK from another country. I found a suitable and not too expensive flat via an ad on gumtree. I contacted the person of this ad and we pretty soon came to an agreement. I was a little suspicious about how relatively fast this went and the fact that the flat was a little too cheap for the location, but it was just at a reasonable limit.
So I let myself fool by a contract made by a solicitors agency and transferred 880 pounds - the deposit as well as the first months' rent - knowing that it is common practice to pay this in advance in the UK.

One week before my arrival this person wanted another transfer, this time by Western Union. I was supposed to do so since a Landlord Association wanted a proof that I am able to cover my expenses for a living in London. They were afraid that I might be a nuisance on the street. It was at this point that I got very suspicious about this and asked a friend of mine who lives in the UK. He immediately told me that I might have been scammed, whereupon I called the solicitors agency who allegedly made the contract. They also told me that this was a scam, having had a lot of troubles already with someone forging contracts in their name.

After I found out I stayed in contact with that person, pretending to not know anything. Unfortunately I did not succeed in getting any more information apart from a false mobile number. Both the police in my country as well as in the UK are having a report about this, but since I suspect some organized crime behind this operating from who knows where I have little hope in their success. The only real information I had was the UK bank details to where I transferred the money, but it is likely that it has been opened with a forged ID card.

Although I always believed I was intelligent enough to see through any kind of scam I have to admit that I have been disabused. This is especially due to the way this person interacted with me. From a normal person who tries to scam you you wouldn't expect a rude email when you're complaining about something, you'd expect an email that says "It's all right, sorry about this etc..." Also some 'personal information' like "Sorry for the late reply, I just got back home from work" were admittedly cleverly spread. So yes, in this case I have not been intelligent enough to understand I had been scammed. The biggest mistake I made though was to NOT call the solicitors agency when I received the contract (via email), blindly trusting that it was all right like this.

So, whoever is trying to find an apartment on the internet:
- be careful with any ad that sounds too good to be true
- be suspicious if an agreement with a landlord/landlady is done too fast and too easy
- do NOT trust any contracts you receive via email, even though they might have been done by a solicitors agency
- do NOT transfer any money before you haven't met the landlord/landlady in person AND before you haven't seen the apartment

I really do hope that if there is anything good coming from this story then it is to prevent others from doing the same mistake!

Gumtree (www.GumTree.com) has just pinched £20 from my Credit Card - without Featuring my ad as promised.

I have the Gumtree Invoice and the GumTree ad Approval to prove my point - but my Gumtree Advert is nowhere to be seen and has been deleted.

Meanwhile the £20 Fee has already been grabbed from my Credit Card by Gumtree.

I have emailed all of the staff, but they are not responding.

The advert was not offensive, and there are many other free adverts of similar wording (and type) on GumTree.com.

After doing further research, I have found out that Gumtree frequently creams such funds off people's credit cards on a regular basis.

Many of the Featured Advertisers who do not follow up their paid adverts will then be duped into thinking that Gumtree has posted their advert - when in fact their ads have since been deleted.

My advice is that you should not upgrade your Free Gumtree Advert to a Paid Featured Gumtree Ad until Gumtree comes clean on it's fraudulent advert deletion policies.