enquiring

Housing charity Shelter said the full scale of the issue was not clear, because it was only after enquiring about a property than prospective tenants were told they were not welcome.

Officers obtained recordings of Beard's phone calls to HMPO, in which he can be heard enquiring about passport applications under different names.

The business has also seen a more than five-fold increase in people enquiring about vacancies.

"There are simply not enough homes available to rent to meet the demand from people enquiring."

Harry Cairney, who runs the Fife garage whose address Auto-Promotions falsely listed as its own, says hundreds of people have called and visited in recent months, enquiring about vehicles advertised on the fake company's website.