The Police have observed a resurgence of a scam variant that involves scammers impersonating legitimate property agents and pressuring victims for payment to secure the rental of a unit before viewing the property. Since January 2023, at least 305 victims have fallen prey, with losses amounting to at least S$1.7 million.
Secure viewing of property listing
In this variant, the victims would typically respond to sponsored online property rental listings on various advertisement sites (e.g. Facebook, Carousell, etc) and initiate a conversation with the scammer via Whatsapp using the contact numbers listed in the fake online listing.
During the conversation, the scammer would impersonate a registered property agent and convince the victim of his credentials by sending a picture of a legitimate property agent’s Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) registration number, business card and pictures or virtual tours/videos of the property to be leased.
When victims ask if they could view the property, the scammers would pretend that there was intense demand for the property and would pressure the victims to quickly make rental deposits to a local bank account (e.g. Standard Chartered Bank, United Overseas Bank, DBS/POSB, etc) to secure the rental.
In Some Cases
In some cases, the scammers would request for the victim’s personal details to prepare the lease agreement and would send a copy of a lease agreement with the name and NRIC of the purported owner of the unit to the victims for their signature before asking for the rental deposits. After paying this deposit, victims would discover that they had been scammed when the scammer ceased contact with them or when they reach out to legitimate property agents through other means.
If you have any information relating to such crimes or if you are in doubt, please call the Police Hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. All information will be kept strictly confidential. If you require urgent Police assistance, please dial ‘999’.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Helpline at 1800-722-6688. Fighting scams is a community effort. Together, we can ACT Against Scams to safeguard our community!
Fake invoice
