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6 People Paid $4,000 Worth of Rent Deposit for an ‘Affordable’ Flat & Were Eventually Scammed

2022-12-05 , 6:05 pm

If you’ve been house hunting before, you’ll know that finding a home that suits everyone’s needs and financial capabilities isn’t the easiest.

If the process seems too easy, it might be too good to be true.

And it seems like that’s the case for six people who decided on the day of a rental flat viewing that they wanted to rent the place.

Here’s what happened.

Six People Viewed Rental Flat Together, All Decided to Rent and Paid Deposit

When speaking to Shin Min Daily News, one of the victims, a lady named Chen Yun (Hanyu pinyin name), revealed that she had found out that a flat located along Serangoon Avenue 1 was available for rent a few weeks ago as she had been searching online for rental flats.

After contacting the man who had put up the listing, she decided to visit the flat with her boyfriend for a viewing on 11 November since the rental fee for the flat was within their budget.

The man in question was not named.

Man Told Potential Tenants Separately That Others Were Willing to Pay Deposit

Ms Chen added that an agent (not the man who put up the listing) and three other potential tenants were present during the viewing.

The man who had put up the listing had told Ms Chen and her boyfriend that the three other potential tenants were acquainted and that they had already decided to pay the deposit to secure the flat.

Upon hearing that others would pay the deposit, Ms Chen quickly decided that she wanted to rent the flat too and transferred $1,300 to him.

The man then assured the couple that he would be responsible for collecting their deposit and would liaise with the agent regarding the signing of contracts. According to him, they just needed to wait for everything to be done before collecting the keys to the flat.

As for whether or not the three other potential clients were really acquainted, that’s a mystery. But what we do know is that the man’s lies were definitely “acquainted” with each other.

The reason? Another tenant came forth with the exact same story that Ms Chen described.

According to the tenant, Ms Ma (Hanyu pinyin), she contacted the same man as Ms Chen, who also told her that the other potential tenants at the viewing knew each other.

Like Ms Chen, this also prompted Ms Ma to pay the deposit soon after the viewing.

Ms Ma also revealed that the six affected tenants are three couples and that they all paid the deposit to the man.

The total deposit for all six of them came to around $4,000.

Tenants Finally Called Police After Not Receiving Contract and Keys

However, the tenants realised after some time that they had not been issued the contract or keys after paying the deposit.

As the days went on, the tenants became more suspicious of the situation and contacted the agent at the scene.

According to Ms Ma, the agent was completely unaware of what the man had done and did not receive any deposit fees from him either.

The flat had also been rented out to another tenant by then.

Hence, the six victims decided to file a police report on 25 November in the hopes that they would be able to receive a refund for their deposit soon.

Ms Chen also added that she had planned to move in at the end of November but is currently homeless and unable to find another house.

Agent’s Response

When contacted by Shin Min, the agent revealed that the man only told him two things: That the potential tenants were all acquainted and that they would be able to pay the deposit on the day of the viewing.

The agent, Mr Chen (Hanyu pinyin), also recalled how the man constantly pressurised him to send him the contract first. Thankfully, he was cautious about the situation and did not do so.

Man Sent Fake Screenshots, Asked Tenants to “Take Pity on Him”

Apart from being unable to stay in the rental flat, Ms Chen also shared that the man sent them various screenshots of his “transfer” and “contract” but only realised afterwards that these screenshots were fabricated.

She explained that the tenants zoomed in on the photos and realised that both the address and amount paid in the contract looked like they had been edited.

As for the transfer of deposit, the date was incorrect, and the word “SGD” was spelt as “SGB”, further confirming their suspicions.

When the tenants called the man to question him, he insisted he was innocent. He even cried while saying he had met a similar scammer in a love scam before and was “miserable” when he was being cheated.

He also asked the tenants to “take pity on him”, although I’m sure you can tell whether or not they did.

Subsequently, they brought the man to the police station, where he claimed he was the victim.

After being released from the police station, he told the tenants that he would issue them a refund for their deposits that night and requested that they withdraw their case.

However, he did not end up paying them back.

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**Man Claimed Another Agent Cheated Him**

As for what the man has to say about his actions, he’s got a story of his own.

He told reporters from Shin Min that he got to know another agent (not Mr Chen) through an online website.

After collecting the deposit from the six tenants, he apparently transferred $8,000 to the agent — twice the total deposit paid to him.

He said he took money out of his pocket to pay for the “second month’s deposit” to the agent he had met online.

After the alleged transfer, the man revealed that he could no longer contact the agent in question and claimed that the agent had scammed him.

The man also said that he has filed a police report against that agent.

As to why he did not transfer the money to the agent at the viewing (Mr Chen), he only said that he transferred the deposit money to the agent he met online as he thought that that agent would be the one helping him to handle the rental matters afterwards.