Sales Fraud

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Homebuyers and novice investors are being blindsided by spruikers masquerading as qualified property investment professionals, according to two peak industry bodies. 
The Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) and the Property Investors Council of Australia (PICA) have joined forces to warn consumers that unscrupulous operators could cost them their life savings. 
PIPA chairman Peter Koulizos said with property markets rebounding, fly-by-night spruikers were once more coming out of the woodwork with the aim of snaring the unwary. 
“PIPA has heard of buyers being offered ‘cash back’ deals of tens of thousands of dollars to encourage them to buy inferior properties,” Koulizos said. 
“Of course, the ‘cash’ isn’t real because it’s built into the sales price so, in essence, buyers are paying for their own supposed windfalls.”
PICA chairman Ben Kingsley said property investment charlatans often made their money by accepting huge commissions to promote substandard property investment stock to investors. 
“These fake advisers will also never disclose how they make their money if a consumer should ever ask, which should be a big red flag to anyone enticed by their slick marketing campaigns,” Kingsley said. 
“It’s quite common for developers to offer commissions of $50,000 or more as well as gold Rolexes for help to offload subpar stock.” 
Kingsley said while commissions were a common part of the property investment sector, a qualified adviser would also undertake significant research before recommending a property to clients. 
“Unfortunately, huge commissions are the sole motivation for faux advisers,” Kingsley said. 
“They are only thinking about their own bank balances and not the long-term financial consequences on consumers of their under-handed actions.” 
Koulizos said the lack of regulation in the provision of property investment advice meant that consumers often couldn’t recognise a con-artist from a professional.
As well as being members of PIPA, Koulizos said consumers should look for experts who have completed specialist education in property investment advice or are licenced buyer’s agents. 
“Because of the paucity of legislation, PIPA developed the Qualified Property Investment Adviser (QPIA) course to address the need for professionals in the industry to be appropriately qualified to give advice,” he said. 
“Consumers should only work with licensed buyer’s agents and advisers that have completed a QPIA, who are also members of PIPA, because of our strict code of conduct that includes full disclosure of commissions.”
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Industry bodies warn against charlatan property agents

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A former Wollongong real estate agent has been charged with multiple forgery, fraud and misappropriating offences.
Detectives from Lake Illawarra Police District, with the assistance of the Office of Fair Trading, commenced an investigation into the 53-year-old man following a complaint received in relation to the theft of funds.
Police allege between December 2017 and June 2018 the man made and submitted false documents to a business that provides real estate agents their entitled commissions up front.
The false documents included photoshopped emails and letterheads from solicitors and conveyancers located in the Illawarra, fabricated contracts of sales and agency agreements, false bank deposits and false signatures.
The documents were allegedly submitted on more than 12 occasions over the seven-month period, resulting in a financial advantage of $263,755.
The investigation revealed the man had also allegedly misappropriated more than $200,000 in funds from a sales trust account.
The 53-year-old man was arrested at Lake Illawarra Police Station last week.
He was charged with 12 counts of forgery, 12 counts of fraud and three counts of fraudulent conversion of money.
He was granted strict conditional bail and is due to face Wollongong Local Court on 5 November 2019.
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Wollongong real estate agent charged over alleged fabricated contract sales

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The property expert Cameron Deal, 46, has been sentenced to six months prison after pleading guilty to scamming the Geelong footballer Stewart Crameri in a hoax real estate venture.
The former real estate agent and buyer's advocate blamed alcohol and drug abuse for his circumstances, claiming he had been threatened by an armed drug dealer over a $114,000 cocaine debt. 
The 46 year old Deal (below) wept as the custodial sentence was handed down in the Melbourne Magistrates Court pre-Christmas.
His lawyer has indicated an appeal would be lodged, Fairfax Media reported.
With over 2,500 purchases, Deal very successfully promoted himself as "a respected media authority on all property matters" regularly offering himself to Melbourne media. 
The court was told Deal, who spent over 20 years as an agent and buyers advocate, enticed Crameri to invest in a St Kilda property in 2016.
He instructed the then Western Bulldogs footballer to deposit $96,250 into a trust account to which he was a signatory.
Crameri was provided with falsified documents for the Crimea Street property which was not on the market.
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/po.images/2018/1/8/deal.jpg" alt="">
The deposit was then taken by <a href="http://www.infolio.com.au/the-pointy-end/" target="_blank">the former regular property seminar speaker.</a>
Deal also pleaded guilty to unauthorised transactions on a credit card he stole from a buyer's advocacy firm that employed him briefly in 2016.
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Deal narrowly avoided a prison sentence last January, when he pleaded guilty in the County Court to stealing $230,000 from the South Melbourne real estate business owned by his former wife. 
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Another former business associate said he lost about $300,000 in a failed venture with Deal, which involved fraudulent sale contracts for three inner-city properties.
The money was only repaid after the dispute reached the "steps of court."
Over the past two years, Deal has been evicted from two apartments in Black Rock and Elwood over failure to pay his rent, while a Mercedes SL 500 was also repossessed.
It is understood several complaints about Deal's conduct have been forwarded to Consumer Affairs Victoria.
In 2010 the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court granted final orders against the South Melbourne real estate agency Infolio Corp Pty Ltd and its former director Cameron Deal briefly restraining them from operating as a real estate business without a licence.
The court found that the company had breached the Real Estate Agents Act 1980 by operating without a licence between September 2009 and 11 August 2010.
Consumer Affairs Victoria took out a temporary injunction against Infolio Corp Pty Ltd.
The company, which subsequently received its real estate licence, was ordered to pay $2500 costs.
In 2012 The Australian Financial Review cited Deal as an expert on property matters.
In 2012 <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/expert-insights/investing/16124-victorian-buyers-have-lost-a-bargaining-chip-but-gained-the-ability-to-change-their-minds-in-cooling-off-changes" target="_blank">he wrote</a> on the rules and regulations regarding cooling off rights, then in 2013 <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/vic/27132-super-saturday-melbournes-busiest-ever-auction-day" target="_blank">Property Observer</a> wrote of his weekend auction tactics. He was a big advocate of <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/expert-insights/buying/18464-friday-five-melbourne-hot-spots-for-spring" target="_blank">his local suburbs</a>. He featured in numerous seminars. 
"The lies and misconceptions that I saw as a real estate agent to buyers really shocked me," he once advised on the reason he became a buyers' advocate.
In 2014 still at Infolio Property Advisors, which he was a co-founder in 2008, Deal was in the media after seminars billing himself as an "expert across the breadth of the home market – from million dollar plus properties to $400,000 investments."
One of <a href="https://joy.org.au/humpdaycrew/2009/06/thinking-of-buying-a-property-cameron-deal-talks-with-the-hump-day-crew-about-the-market/" target="_blank">his earliest mentions</a> was on Melbourne radio station Joy.
 
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Fallen property buyers' agent Cameron Deal jailed for fraud

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Estate agent Anthony Brancatella has pleaded guilty to misappropriation.
The amount totalled almost $2 million across 62 breaches.
The former director of the McDonald Real Estate franchise in Mulgrave pleaded guilty to 62 charges relating to fraudulently converting money he obtained from property deals.
The Victorian County Court heard Mr Brancatella cashed cheques from trust accounts where sale deposits were held for vendors, putting the money back into the firm’s business account.
The Herald Sun reported he also misappropriated deposits by never placing them into the trust account, often using them to pay off renovations to his own house, staff wages, and debts owed to other clients.
Prosecutor Daniel Porceddu said Mr Brancatella had defrauded clients of a total of $1,999,920, of which $508,000 was repaid via claims to the Victorian Property Fund, and almost $400,000 was repaid by the Brancatella.
Several victim impact statements were read out during the plea hearing which continues.
The offences occurred between December 2011 and June 2014.
The Brancatella franchise company was placed into external administration in the wake of the CAV investigation.
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Sales Fraud

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