Renting a home is not just for foreigners but also youngsters who wished to move out. It is going to be a more and more common practice as many people prefer ‘freedom’.

However, those who legitimately rent a place in Singapore as they are working here often have all sorts of stories about crazy landlords.

In this story a perverted one.

Landlord Charged

According to Shin Min Daily News, The girl and her boyfriend rented a place together. One night in June last year, she was touched while sleeping in the house.

When she woke up, she found a “shadow” standing beside the bed. Because of her boyfriend’s bald head, “Black Shadow” has hair, which makes the girl puzzled.

The boyfriend returned to the room after showering. After learning about the incident, he asked whether his girlfriend had encountered a “little ghost”, pointing out that he suspected that the landlord and his wife had the habit of raising “little ghosts”.

The two later secretly installed a CCTV. The girl was touched again in August, and the person who entered the room happened to be the landlord.

Yesterday(Aug 30), the landlord has been charged in court, but he has pleaded not guilty and the trial is still ongoing.

What is a ‘little ghost’?

According to folklore, there are primarily known as ‘Kum Mantong’, ‘little ghost’ or sometimes known as ‘toyol’.

Various cultures believed that they are able to attend wealth and success by giving the ‘ghost’ an offering.

The Police would like to alert the public to a variant of job scam where victims participated in jobs requiring prepayments to rate applications. Subsequently, victims were unable to withdraw their commissions. Since April 2022, there have been at least 43 victims, with losses amounting to at least $781,000.

In these cases, scammers would reach out to victims via online messaging applications such as Whatsapp. Scammers would inform victims that they could earn commission by rating applications.

Once victims agree to the job offer, they would be provided with a website link to register an account and instructed to top it up by transferring cash into bank accounts maintained by persons unknown to them.

After the cash transfer, the equivalent USDT would be reflected in victims’ accounts, and they could then start rating the applications.

Rating an application would cost victims some USDT, and once the account of the victims depletes, they would be instructed to top up their account again by transferring cash to another unknown person.

Initially, victims would be able to withdraw their commissions, which convinced them that the work was legitimate.

However, victims would later discover that they were unable to withdraw their commission and realise they had been scammed.

The Police would like to advise members of the public to adopt the following precautionary measures:

• Do not accept dubious job offers that offer lucrative returns for minimal effort;

• Never download applications from unverified sources; and

• Never send money to anyone whom you do not know or have not met in person before.

If you have information related 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. Please dial ‘999’ if you require urgent Police assistance.

For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Join the ‘Spot the Signs. Stop the Crimes’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next victim.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
30 August 2022 @ 9:45 AM