NEW SYSTEM OF FRAUD

Southland Times, Issue 20537, 13 July 1928, Page 8

NEW SYSTEM OF FRAUD

BOGUS PROPERTY SALES. TRICKING THE FARMER. LUCRATIVE FORM OF SWINDLE. Sydney, June 28. Swindlers are everlastingly discovering something new. In Victoria and New South Wales they have been engaged in bogus land sales, and by some means or other they seem to have kept within the law. They have found the swindle very lucrative. The other day three more settlers called at the Criminal Investigation Department in Melbourne and complained that they had been “tricked” by land salesmen to sell their blocks in the country at a “handsome” profit and buy blocks in suburban subdivisions. The men explained that they had been told that their country blocks had been sold at a profit of several hundred pounds, and on these representations they had been induced to invest further in city blocks, which they had been told by the salesmen could be resold at a good profit. After the settlers had paid their cheques for the suburban blocks, they discovered that their country blocks had not been sold and that, as no documents had been signed, they had no legal redress. The salesmen, however, the men explained, had taken care to have all the necessary documents in connection with the sale of suburban blocks signed, with the result that the settlers found themselves committed to large liabilities. The salesmen who adopt these tricks, the police say, are either confidence men or associates of "magsmen.” One man who camplained in Melbourne said that he had been told that his land was sold at a profit of 100 per cent, and he was induced to buy other land for £l5OO. The cheque for the land he first held never came to hand, and the man found himself absolutely committed to the contract for £l5OO. Arising out of the complaints the police recently took action against a man on a charge of having obtained money from a woman by false pretences. The accused, however, was acquitted by direction of the judge, who held that there was no evidence to support the charge. It is evident that the men who have been tricked were extremely simple, but it would seem also that there are more simple people than there are swindlers. The police recognize that the simpletons must be protected and the matter of amending the law to bring the latest type of swindler within it is now receiving attention in both States-