Despite doing their due diligence to check on their agent’s background, nothing seemed amiss during the process. The agent had the required licence registration number and documents to back up the listing.
“I’ve been renting for 12 years. We’re not new to renting a house, so we did a thorough check to make sure it was legitimate. We went to PropNex to check his licence number,” JM told 8days.sg.
JM and Faz believe that the scammer might have been using the profile of an actual PropNex agent named Mike Tay.
They spoke to “Mike” on phone calls, but only met his “assistant” in person.
JM explained: “It is not uncommon [to only meet with an agent’s assistant], even our current agent does the same when they have to attend several listings at the same time. We viewed almost 15 units this month, and sometimes we would only meet with the agent’s partner or assistant.”
JM and Faz are parents to a newborn, and their lease at their current place ends end September. Thankfully, their landlord is understanding of their situation and has extended their lease until end October.
“The initial plan was to buy a house,” said JM, who is from the Philippines. “My PR status just got approved, and we just got our HFE (HDB Flat Eligibility) letter so we’re applying for an upcoming BTO. But we still need to rent because that’s going to take time,” said JM
The couple wished to rent a place that was convenient for them to travel to and from work, especially since they are taking turns to take care of their newborn.
During the process of renting the house, Faz and JM did have a “gut feeling” that something might have been off.
JM said: “If we ask for something, they were very fast. They were very quick to say, ‘That’s okay’.”
Faz added: “Usually they wpuld have to check with the landlord, but [Mike] agreed within 15 minutes.”
According to JM, the scammers were also very good at playing at one’s emotions.
“We really liked the place, especially for our growing family, and we would save money compared to other listings. They would say we’re too slow to decide, and tell us there were many viewings already. They put you into this kind of situation to rush your decision,” she said.
“We only have Mike’s Whatsapp photo, and the assistant is a lady who wears a tudung, around 165cm, on the plump side. We searched residential records, and an agent exists with [Mike’s] record. It could be Mike, or someone used his ID to do all this. The only thing we have is the bank account number we transferred to,” said Faz.
Their current agent also helped in checking Mike’s legitimacy, and was equally shocked at how elaborate the scam was. They suspect the scammer might have purchased a title deed from the SLA site, and doctored it to change the location.