I know it isn't yours - if it was yours I'd sign it
I agree that it might increase awareness and perhaps even cause a change in regulations - but to be absolutely clear, I do not believe there is much in the way of scams. Idiots yes, scams, probably not as many as anyone thinks. The scams are isolated cases we've all heard of - often involving a barman, waiter or other person outside the industry who promises to get a better price and the customer ends up paying a higher price or in some cases the ultimate price - losing the lot.
There are few people more disillusioned with the property market in Turkey than me - not because it is slow but because it is rife with scandal and tales of dishonest people and there is not much kudos in being an estate agent in Turkey these days. Towards the end of my time living there I used to dread being asked what I did, and could feel the life draining out of me as I replied. So I will tell you what I really think.
There are very few "scams". Very few indeed. What we have is the coming together of two fairly inert things that become explosive when brought together - idiot customers and idiot builders/idiot others in and around the property industry in Turkey. I met so many people in the property game out there who have no obvious business skills at all - they called themselves business people but they were actually people who had a business. "Right place right time" types. Agents, builders, Brits, Turks - and this is the problem now. Builders got so deep in debt building, selling, building, selling, building...oh **** nobody's buying. Imagine this situation:
You can't pay the bank and unless you find £40,000 by Friday, you're finished. Do you (a) Lose everything or (b) borrow £40,000 to pay the bank secured on that tapu you haven't signed over yet? It isn't right but that IS WHAT IS HAPPENING. Not scams, self preservation. It stinks, I deplore it but it would be worthwhile writing all this if 1 person gets to understand that the problem isn't scams, the problem is builders getting in too deep and using something that is technically still theirs to save themselves from the banks.
In the courts the banks get awarded the property - people shout that this is a scam at the highest level - IT IS NOT! The bank lent on the basis that a property was security and what else can the courts do than award the property to the bank - it was the security offered up!
Sadly the other side is customers - we all expose ourself to risk and I am no different - sometimes you have to put your faith in someone you don't know very well and I have done that and I have been the person that people have trusted many times. The trick is going for a calculated risk and I do not believe many people affected do - as I said, from no risk to total exposure to potentially losing £90,000 for a free washing machine is total madness, and not because I lost out - it is the actions of an imbecile. I have also noted that customers have followed two trends between 2003 and today:
1. Customers in recent times are generally focused on getting a deal and lose complete sight of risk - for example they are much happier to send the whole amount if the builder gives in to their impressive tough negotiating (in their own opinion, nobody else's) demand for a £5,000 discount and free curtains.
2. As time went on I found slowly but surely you can't tell many customers anything. In the early days people came with a crazy dream and you talked them through it and eventually steered some keys and a tapu into their hands. These days quite often they turn up and they know it all, more than you in fact. I suspect the ones that think they know the most are often the ones who end up with nothing. Because they aren't prepared to listen to anyone apart from the expert - themselves.
Pick the bones out of that lot!