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.
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If you have been following us for awhile you might remember this article from last month about the Top 5 Most Common Online Scam Methods plaguing Malaysians.
Unsurprisingly, Sabah’s property rental market has become the latest haunting ground for these scummy scammers.
Image: Jess has recently been stationed to Kota Kinabalu as part of her housemanship placement.
A junior doctor named Jess* (name changed for privacy) encountered a scam that tried to take her RM4500 deposit while she was hunting for apartments in Kota Kinabalu. This is her story from her personal experience.
“I was browsing through apartments in KK when I saw an unbelievable offer.”
Image alt text: tunnel vision view of well lit airbnb apartment
It was a fully furnished unit that was asking for only RM1,300 a month, which is really cheap, because the average rental price for other apartments in that building was around RM1,800.
Not being familiar with city prices in KK, I didn’t think too much about it and decided to just try my luck. I sent the owner an email and this was the response I got.
Image: Email response from online scammer owner of a unit listed as “Lido Four Season apartment”
“Fadzilah” launched into what was basically her whole life story.
In a very long and detailed essay, she told me that she had to move to Sarawak, and she initially wanted to sell the apartment but her husband advised against it.
She sent me photos of her apartment, and it looked absolutely stunning.
“All this for just RM1,300 a month? I was amazed!”
The apartment looked really good! It was spacious, fully furnished and well decorated. She even included night-time shots of the cityscape and apartment facilities. Wow, all this for just RM1,300 a month?
Then things got a little more interesting.
Fadzilah told me that she was looking for a good tenant to take care of her apartment, and that money was not her priority.
“Money is not the major reason why we are renting this apartment,” she said.
“Fair enough,” I thought. She probably put a lot of time and effort designing the apartment and clearly has an emotional attachment.
But then came the twist.
Out of nowhere, she asked me for a deposit of RM4,500.
This included one month of rent (RM1,500) and 2 months in advance. At first, I was confused, because the original listing advertised the apartment at RM1,300 a month.
I know it’s fairly common for owners to ask for 2 months rental in advance, but doesn’t this usually happen AFTER the viewing?
Alarm bells were going off, but I wanted to see where this was going.
For someone who had just been saying that “money is not her main concern” this began to sound suspicious.
She finished off her email with this doozy:
“I just had a feeling that anyone who knows what it takes to put the kind of structure down should know that maintaining a building is mandatory, so if you believe you can take good care of the apartment and handle it like yours then I will be more than happy to let you rent the house.”
First of all, which Malaysian speaks like that? Even if English is not their first language, we don’t sound like that.
I was reminded of some of the karangan we did back in school. We used to try too hard to make our writing sound fancy by using flowery, complicated words.
This felt the same but as if the person writing it was not even Malaysian. Was this written by a bot?
Anyway, the ‘owner’ assured me that they would arrange a viewing once I paid the deposit.
I should have ended it right there, but curiosity got the best of me. I replied casually but made sure to only provide fake personal info.
I gave a fake address, fake name, and even a fake ID I made from a profile picture generator.
Within a few hours, the owner sent me photos of her and her husband’s IC and asked me to confirm the appointment date.
Image alt text: Stolen Malaysian IC manipulated
I decided to do a bit of detective work and took a closer look at their ICs. Not many know this, but you can check the authenticity of a person’s identity by running their IC number through the SPR website:
It turns out my suspicions were correct: The ICs were stolen and had been manipulated. I stopped all contact with them immediately and reported the ad they ran on the host platform.
I wish I could have done more, like report this scam to the authorities, but I’m not sure what is the proper approach and channels. Will they even entertain such a small fry case like this?
But still, scummy people like these should not be allowed to con and ruin other people’s lives. I guess the only thing I can do is to share this experience and hope that it’ll help someone else someday.
5 Steps To Identify A Fake Apartment Listing in Malaysia
Source: Unsplash
As Jess mentioned, unfortunately there isn’t much the authorities can do to curb these illegal activities. Scammers adapt very quickly and come up with new ways of manipulating us before we realise it.
The best approach is to spread as much information to as many people as possible. Thanks to Jess, anyone looking to rent a new property will know some of the red flags to look out for.
Here are some telltale signs that helped Jess avoid being a victim of an online scam:
- If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Always compare rental prices with other listings and get a good feel of the average rate before committing.
- Photos can lie. In Jess’s case, she noticed that the photos she was sent did not look like an average apartment that has been lived in. It was too well lit and designed to look like an AirBnB.
- Never give out your personal information, especially online. This seems straightforward on paper, but too many of us fall prey to leaving our personal information everywhere online.
- Just because they sent you their IC, doesn’t mean they’re 100% trustworthy. As mentioned, you can crosscheck their identity through the SPR website. You can also tell if the photo has been manipulated by looking at the font colour, size and positioning.
- If it suddenly feels like you’re talking to a totally different person, be alert. Scammers operate in large groups and often more than one person is working on a ‘case’. The first contact email or Whatsapp message is usually very long and overly detailed because the ‘template’ was crafted ahead of time. Subsequent interactions can feel jarring as the responding individual suddenly has poor language skills or is sending very short, blunt replies.
For more stories like this, read:
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