SCAM ALERT: BE AWARE OF SCAM CALLS ABOUT REPAIRS TO YOUR HOME
Scams seem to be becoming more and more commonplace in our society, with many schemes out there trying to enlist our trust to take money or personal details from us.
We want to alert all our tenants to a housing disrepair scam that is going around at the moment both on social media and especially via telephone calls after a resident reported that they had been contacted by a ‘company’ pretending it was working on behalf of Falcon Rural Housing.
The scam includes seeing posts on social media or receiving a phone call encouraging tenants not to report household repairs to us, but to make a claim for disrepair instead. This will involve their ‘specialist’ solicitors who claim they will be able to take us to court over unsolved repairs.
These companies may pretent to be ‘The Housing Maintenance Department’, ‘Repairs Team’ or ‘working with’ Falcon Rural Housing.
In the case that was reported to us, the scammer said they were from a company working with Falcon Rural Housing and were asking about repairs needed at the resident’s home. They told the tenant they would get in touch with us here at Falcon Rural on the residents behalf. The caller also followed this up with many text messages.
This scam call was made from the phone number: 07747 932353 but can come from any number.
Other housing associations have seen cases where their vulnerable tenants have been targeted and signed disrepair claims. These have been exaggerated by solicitors and not made it to court, leaving the tenants to pay expensive legal fees.
Our repairs process
It is an obligation as part of your tenancy agreement that if you have any repairs required to your home, you need to contact the Association directly and as soon as possible
At Falcon Rural Housing we will never call our tenants and ask for personal information (name, age, birth date or address) in order to carry out a repair.
If you have logged a repair request with the office, a member of the Falcon Team or one of our regular contractors will call you to arrange an appointment.
Contact us if you’re concerned
If you receive a call about repairs, or anything to do with your home that doesn’t sound right, please contact us directly and we can check whether the call was legitimate.