Relocation agency sued for questionable methods

For five years, a relocation company has specialized in housing for the disadvantaged. The problem: it allegedly assumed the identities of other clients and forged their signatures to obtain the apartments offered. The sublet money was pocketed by the company, without the rent being paid to the management company. One family had to be urgently rehoused three times in six months, with fees to pay each time. The cost of the operation: 6,000 francs. Several management companies and tenants discovered the scam and filed complaints, according to the "Tribune de Genève." The man at the head of the company, a forty-year-old presumed innocent, is said to have managed around forty apartments and developed a veritable network since 2020.

Pilet & Renaud, Moser Vernet & C ^ie , Régie du Centre, Grange Immobilier... No fewer than eight agencies were affected. According to the manager of one of them, quoted by the Geneva daily, the machine was well-oiled. Apartment hunters regularly used "seven names, five telephone numbers, and three different email addresses, which greatly complicates checks."