Man falsely put up his flat on Carousell for rent and collected S$17,250 from 8 victims, gets jail

SINGAPORE: Struggling with paying the bills, a Shopee delivery driver decided to cheat interested tenants of cash by listing his flat on Carousell for rent.

Lee Chee Tiong, 41, collected more than S$17,000 in rent from eight victims who were urgently seeking for a place to stay, without leasing his home to them at all.

Lee was given 10 months' jail on Tuesday (Jan 18) for his crimes. He pleaded guilty to three cheating offences, with another five charges taken into consideration.

The court heard that Lee earned more than S$3,000 a month as a delivery driver and stayed with his wife in a flat in Bedok.

After facing financial problems, he listed an advertisement on Carousell offering to rent out his unit in Bedok North Avenue 2 for S$1,550 per month.

Several people responded to his ad. One of them, an Indian national living with his wife and daughter, asked to view the unit.

Lee let the family view his flat, before getting the victim to sign a written rental agreement he had prepared.

The victim transferred S$3,000 to Lee on Jan 19 last year via PayNow for the security deposit and one month's rent.

Lee said he would submit the details to the Housing Board for registration the next day, and that it would take three working days to process.

The victim repeatedly checked with Lee on the status of the registration, but Lee would give him excuses and asked for more rent in advance.

Eventually, the victim asked to cancel the rental agreement and for his money to be returned. He later lodged a police report as he found the matter to be "strange".

Lee later made partial restitution of S$1,200 to this victim in December 2021 and January this year. However, he did not make restitution to any of his other victims.

When Lee was interviewed by the police in February last year, he admitted that he never had any intention to rent his flat out. 

He advertised it on Carousell solely to raise money for his own use, including to repay his debts to loan sharks. He said he searched for template rental agreements on Google and printed them out for his victims to sign.

ANXIETY AND INCONVENIENCE CAUSED TO THE VICTIMS: PROSECUTOR

The prosecutor sought 10 to 12 months' jail for Lee, saying he cheated a substantial sum of S$17,250 from eight victims.

"In so doing, he also caused considerable inconvenience and anxiety to them as well as their families, including young children," she said.

Many of the victims viewed the flat with their family members and expected to move in at short notice. Some of the victims did not even realise they had been cheated until the police contacted them, and were still waiting to move in, the prosecutor said.

Defence lawyer Riko Isaac Chua asked for no more than 10 months' jail, saying his client found it "very difficult" to support his family as the sole breadwinner.

Lee borrowed from licensed and unlicensed moneylenders and tried to think of ways to make payments to his creditors, said Mr Chua.

"He tried to rent out his home but ... because of the huge response he was getting as to enquiries to rental, he then realised that he could cheat the enquirers of the money using this method," said the lawyer.

"Obviously, he did this out of financial desperation with the feeling of needing to find ways to support his family."

The judge said there was clearly a public interest in deterring such rental scams, noting that Lee even went to the extent of preparing rental agreements to deceive his victims.

He allowed Lee to defer his sentence to Feb 8.