Rental fraud 713/2024
FOI Reference: 713/2024
Request:
How many police complaints of rental fraud/scam has your police force dealt with in the past ten years years?
Could I have these figures broken down on the following basis:
- Year-by-year
- Age of alleged victim
- Result of case (i.e case dropped/charged/conviction)
- Origin of scam (i.e Facebook marketplace, gumtree, etc)
Clarification: - The timescale requested for data: 01/01/2014 - 18/7/2024. Broken down on a year by year basis./
- Rental fraud refers to when would-be tenants are tricked into paying an upfront fee to rent a property when in reality, the property does not exist, has already been rented out, or has been rented to multiple victims at the same time. See Action Fraud definition here: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/a-z-of-fraud/rental-fraud
- Complaint refers to an incident recorded.
Response:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.
Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:
Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 110 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the whole request is not held in an easily retrievable format. Data is only retained over 6 years, which means that years 7 – 10 are not held. Data is held in a searchable format from 01/01/2023, however that data is created by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) and it does not include a specific category for rental-fraud, which is recorded with numerous other fraud types under a generic Home Office Counting Rule ‘NFIB90 – None of the above’.
In the year 2023 – 2024, a total of 3,311 frauds, relating to victims in our force area, were recorded under the HOCR ‘NFIB90 – None of the above’. Therefore to identify reports relating specifically to rental-fraud would need a review of the narrative within all 3,311 reports, and it has been estimated that it would take an average of 2 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:
3,311 records x 2 minutes per record = 110 hours
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.
You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevan
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 12/08/2024)