Universal Property Group/Bathla/Raj & Jai etc etc they have many different names – don't purchase anything they are involved in.

"There is wide-ranging conspiracy in western Sydney," a local MP, Paul Gibson, said of the problems confronting Ms Manyang and many in her community. "It involves certain construction companies … building or purchasing houses and entering into very suspicious mortgage contract deals."  SMH 5/7/08

Parliament NSW Legislative Assemby 25 June 2008

HOME FINANCE FRAUD

Mr PAUL GIBSON (Blacktown) [7.31 p.m.]: There is a wide-ranging conspiracy in Western Sydney that possibly extends throughout Sydney. It involves certain construction companies—the ones I know of are based in Western Sydney, but there could be more—building or purchasing houses and entering into very suspicious mortgage contract deals. My constituent Rigina Manyang, who is Sudanese and was 27 years of age when this saga began, is a single mum with five children. Last year she was walking through the shopping centre at Mount Druitt when she was approached by a lady named Sonia, who asked her whether she was interested in purchasing a home and handed her a brochure. Rigina, who does not speak English fluently, told her that she worked only 10 hours a week as a cleaner and received the bulk of her income from Centrelink. She said that she was also making car repayments of $560 a month.

A few weeks later Rigina received a telephone call from the company, which invited her to visit its offices in Toongabbie with a view to her purchasing a home. Rigina said that she thought initially that the company was talking about a rental property because she could not possibly afford to buy anything. But she went to the office to have a yarn. She told a fellow there the same story: she is a single mum with five children who works only 10 hours a week and has no money in the bank. He said, "Well, I can't help you." But Rigina said he then started to muck around with figures on a piece of paper. He asked her whether she could afford to pay $800 a fortnight. She said that she thought it was possible. He then told her to tell her real estate agent that she would be vacating her rental property. He said that he would arrange for her to have a new house, but she needed to give him $750 to organise the deal. Rigina returned to the office within the next few days and gave $1,000 in cash to the fellow, who said that she would move into her new home in a few weeks and would have to pay rent of $800 a fortnight.

In November Rigina received another telephone call. She was told to return to the office to sign some documents and to bring some electricity bills for identification purposes. She said that this time she was met by another person, whom she had never seen in her life, who said, "I'm your lawyer; your house is settled and I have the papers for you to sign". She told him that she needed an interpreter because her English was not good enough. They said that her English was fine and that she did not need an interpreter. The so-called lawyer then told Rigina that she would have to pay the $7,000 first home owners grant to the construction company because she did not pay a deposit through the bank. Rigina has signed a statutory declaration to the effect that she had never applied for the first home owners grant.

In November Rigina received another telephone call from the company to say that the repayments would be more expensive as interest rates had increased. In December she was asked why she had not arranged to put her money into a particular bank, and she replied that she had no money. The company then said, "Well, if you've got no money, you can't stay in the house". To cut a long story short, this is a scam. The company even produced a forged document stating that Rigina worked for a certain employer and presented payslips. There was also a statutory declaration signed by a person whom Rigina has never met and never heard of stating that he gave her $105,000. That statutory declaration was submitted to a bank with the application for the home loan. The bank is also in the wrong—I will not say which bank—because it gave Rigina a loan. She must now vacate the house by the end of the week. I have referred the matter to the police and to the Office of Fair Trading. In the past few days I have discovered that seven people in my electorate have been targeted by the same scam. The matter must be investigated. I told Rigina that I would bring her case to the attention of the House today in an attempt to help her and others like her.

Mr JOHN AQUILINA (Riverstone—Leader of the House) [7.36 p.m.]: I assure the member for Blacktown that the Minister for Fair Trading is well and truly on top of this matter. It should concern us all. My electorate neighbours that of the member for Blacktown and I have received 15 different emails outlining similar scams that are circulating in Riverstone. Hardly a week goes past when I do not receive representations from people who have been taken advantage of. It is almost an epidemic. I congratulate the member for Blacktown on raising this matter on behalf of his constituents. We must stop these scams. Many people—such as newly arrived migrants—are not familiar with the nation's economic circumstances and are not fluent in English. They accept people at face value, and they are being taken advantage of in a big way. They amass as much money as they can to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families. Then unscrupulous people take advantage of them and take away the little they have, leaving them destitute.

I congratulate the member for Blacktown on raising this grave matter that warrants investigation by and the full attention of the Minister for Fair Trading and the police to afford justice to these people. Just because they do not come from an English-speaking background and cannot speak the language properly does not mean that they should be taken advantage of. It is the Government's responsibility to protect them.