Real estate rental scam targeting commercial property owners. Saw this at Star TV so had to share this.
Modus operandi - fake real estate negotiator brings in fake tenant. The fake real estate negotiator doesn't turn up but his fake dad/friend appears saying the negotiator cannot turn up. Shows the owner a forged name card (a valid negotiator's name card) and then passes over tenant's deposit in cheque. Reason why the dad/friend has to say the negotiator could not turn up is because the forged real estate negotiator's name card's picture doesn't look like him. The fake tenant also will be around to make it more authentic. In fact the fake tenant also can produce a fake business name card. They create credibility by via identity theft methods and prey on owner's greed to save on agent commissions.
The fake negotiator will negotiate with owner saying no need to pay the full month rent as commission, only pay partial amount but with the agreement to directly bank into his account instead of his agency's account. Once comission banked into the fake negotiator's account, both the fake negotiator and fake tenant will disappear and in a few days time the cheque of the rental deposit will bounce.
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| Fake real esate agent and fake tenant - Identity Theft |
This scam is reported to be targeting shop lot owners so residential properties are quite safe from this scam. The reason is because shop lot rentals are much higher than residential, some commanding up to 10K-20K per month. For residential, it's just not worth the effort to scam owners of properties with rentals of 1K-5K per month.
Precaution measures - Never handover keys to tenant until the deposit for the cheque is cleared. Cash is king, until you see the money in your bank account, assume that it is a no go. Secondly, ask the negotiator to produce their MIEA (Malaysian Institute of Estate Agent) card as proof of identity. Name cards can easily be forged but an MIEA card serves as a 2nd level of verification.
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| MIEA Card |
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| Ex MIEA President's famous words |