Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
A woman in Mutiara Damansara was cheated of her rental deposit by a fake property agent. Here is her story.
I would like to share a rental scam story that I experienced myself in Empire Damansara Studio located in Mutiara Damansara, KL.
About 3 weeks back, I signed a 6-month contract with a person from iBilik who posted the listing, named Mei Ling.
Firstly, I reached out to the number on the listing and arranged for a viewing for this unit.
The 1st red flag: The agent whose number is on the iBilik listing is not the same person as the agent who showed me around the property.
“Mei Ling” asked me for more information. I told her I wanted to move in urgently.
She set up a viewing appointment with me on that Friday itself and said, “I will call my staff to come show you around.”
So, I went for the viewing and this young male agent named “Adib” brought me up to the unit. He spoke good English and was friendly.
However, there was a weird part of the conversation when I commented, “Mei Ling sent you, didn’t she?”
But the agent replied, “Who is that? You’re the one coming for the viewing right, Miss Charisma?”
I said yes, that’s me. Meanwhile I was thinking, this makes no sense. Wouldn’t Mei Ling have messaged the agent to ask them to bring me for viewing?
I ignored the first red flag and carried on with viewing the unit, because I was anxious to move into the unit ASAP. It was spacious, fully-furnished, with WiFi, washing machine, and other mod cons.
I was totally impressed.
I whatsapped Mei Ling, asking if she could show me any other units, and she gave a date for next week. However, this was too late for me as my contract was about to expire in two weeks.
Since I was more than satisfied with the unit, I agreed to move in immediately.
The 2nd red flag: I did not receive a physical copy of the tenancy agreement
Image: Tenancy agreement
I asked if I could sign the tenancy agreement with her on that day itself, but she didn’t reply to me for a few days.
I was getting anxious, so I kept texting her for a reply. I didn’t want to lose this unit, because it was going for a really good rate.
Finally, she responded on the actual date of moving in. She asked me for my IC and shared a contract via Whatsapp.
This should have been the 2nd red flag: The fact that I was not given a physical copy of the tenancy agreement from a real property agent.
But I was just relieved at her response, because so far I had not been able to find any other rental unit and move in at such short notice.
I sent her my IC as she requested, then quickly skimmed through the contract and signed it, then transferred the money to 2 bank accounts.
One was the so-called landlord in the contract and another was the agent who showed me the viewing. I transferred a sum of RM2360.
The 3rd red flag: The contract person deleted proof of the conversation on Whatsapp
Image: The Whatsapp convo between me and “Mei Ling”.
Once I moved in, Mei Ling told me to report to her if anything was not working. I went through the unit and noticed a few minor things like a couple of dead light bulbs.
I sent her some pictures, but it was then I realized I had been blocked. Not only that, but she deleted all the messages about the contract and what she offered on that day I moved.
At this third red flag, I questioned Adib, the agent who had shown me around the place. However, he kept denying he knew Mei Ling saying, “I don’t know this Mei Ling, and I work only for Enny.”
On the 5th day of my stay, in the morning a cleaner came to my unit and started opening the front gate of my apartment.
I was so shocked at how she had the keys, but she was even more shocked to see me staying there. I asked her what she was doing here.
She said something like, “I was assigned to clean this morning. I was told a new tenant would move in a few days later, who are you?”
I told her I am the new tenant, I’ve signed an agreement with the landlord and I’m staying for 6 months and she left.
A woman arrived on the 5th day claiming, “This is an Airbnb”
In the evening, a woman came to the apartment unit.
She looked shocked to see me residing in the unit, and she told me that 2 or 3 guests were supposed to move in today.
“Who are you and how did you get in?” She demanded.
I said I signed a contract to stay here and showed her the iBilik listing.
She was she was an Airbnb host renting this place and had listed it on Airbnb.
She said, “You’ve been scammed. This iBilik listing is actually an Airbnb. I’m the main tenant of the unit.”
She told us to move out immediately. I thought, I’m the victim here, why is she treating me like I was the one who was at fault?
I told her: “Wait a minute, this is unfair. I just moved in a few days ago. Come with me so we can report the scam to the police.”
She replied: “No, I have guests coming tonight. You must leave, go find the agent who gave you the keys to the unit and scammed you.”
I was confused and irritated. As the unit main tenant, wouldn’t you want to question the agent who showed me around? Why didn’t she cooperate with us?
She said I will be charged if I stay on that day. It didn’t seem like I had a choice, so I called over some friends to help me pack my stuff to move before 12am. By that point, it was already 11pm.
When the Airbnb guests arrived, we started asking them for proof
At 11.30pm, the guests appeared and me and my friends started asking questions to find out if they are legit. The guests were calmly answering us, but the Airbnb host started getting annoyed.
From our questioning, they revealed that this was a self check-in unit, so the keys are in a safe outside the door and can be accessed with a series of 4 number combination locks.
The host told us that she hasn’t changed the combination for the past 2 weeks and usually leaves the access card in the fridge.
When asked how come the scammer could give me an access card and where is their original card they couldn’t answer. This revealed how negligent they were.
At this point, I had already moved most of my stuff out, but my friends had accidentally walked back into the unit with their slippers on.
The host then got aggressive and suddenly started shouting, saying “Don’t come in with your slippers! Get out!”
She used profanities and screamed loudly for us to get out of the place.
The Airbnb host got violent and chased us out of the unit
Worried for her own safety, my friend started recording her curse-word filled rant.
It was then that the Airbnb host took a full bottle of bathroom detergent and threw it from far away and it hit my friend’s lower abdomen.
She continued chasing us out and opened the door. Everyone in the block could hear her shout: “This is my property! Get out now!”
Later, the Airbnb guests came down with us and tried to apologise for her behaviour saying, “Sorry, she must be tired. She just drove down from Johor.”
I retorted: “How is that an excuse to be violent?”
I went to the police to report the case that night. They didn’t seem surprised, and they even said this case happens a lot in that area for years. But why has nothing been done?
We also reported the violent woman to the police. The police didn’t give much thought to her actions and started asking us how many of us were there.
“Maybe she was scared and she did that out of defense,” they said.
It has been 2 months and there is no action by the police, Airbnb, or iBilik.
I reported it so many times to Airbnb and iBilik but they aren’t taking it seriously at all. They didn’t even take down the listing or block the listing owner.
The listing is still active on iBilik.my:
Link to the iBilik listing: https://www.ibilik.my/rooms/8008555/suite-at-empire-damansara-damansara-perdana-fully-furnished
We also found that on Airbnb, the same unit is also available for short stay.
Link to the Airbnb listing: https://air.tl/wjjMGccp
When I checked back on the messages in the convo with “Mei Ling”, I realised that she must’ve had pretended to be me over the phone with the agent, Adib, in order to trick him into showing me the unit. This may explain why he didn’t know who Mei Ling was. Or maybe he was in on the scam too.
Either way, there was no way I could get a hold of either of them. All I could do was give the contact details of Mei Ling and Adib to the police.
How to avoid losing your deposit to a fake agent on iBilik
I made a mistake and learnt an expensive lesson, but you don’t have to. Here’s what you should always do before signing a contract and sending over your deposit:
- Do a background check on the property agent
After getting their name card, call their company and check if the person really works there. Don’t call the number on the name card, google the company and call their hotline or landline. If they cannot confirm who the person is, don’t proceed.
- Make sure that you retain a signed copy of the contract
The only proof that you have of this transaction is in the contract, so make sure that you have a physical copy of it signed by both you and the landlord. The landlord’s bank details should also be in the contract, so that the money that you sent can be traced by PDRM back to the bank account so that all monetary transactions in and out can be frozen.
- Don’t rush into what looks like a good deal
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. I didn’t think it was suspicious that the unit was so well-furnished, but on hindsight, it was obvious that it was an Airbnb, because most units do not come with such fancy furniture. It was clearly made for a short stay, but since I was hasty in claiming the unit, I didn’t think twice.
I lost RM2360, but I took it as an lesson and moved on.
Do you have a story like this?
Drop us an email at hello@inreallife.my and we may feature it!
For more stories like this, read:
I Nearly Lost RM4,500 To A Scammer While Hunting for Apartments In Kota Kinabalu
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