A 'prospect tenant' named Zhu Lan contacted me on gumtree, Saying she a sg PR returning from overseas. In the initial email, the person send me 'her' ic S80779??G which at first seems like a sincere person looking for a room. However, the first red flag was tHAt she agree to everything very quickly, offering to rent the room and declining to view it personally when asked

The person even offered to pay the rent of the first 6 months, as 'she' need to show the employer the proof of rent before she can quit her current overseas job as a cruise chef.

The second red flag was when she asked me to register for a paypal account in a perfect and very well worded email The next thing was the whatsapp number 'she' provide was a +63 philippines number.

on top of that she kept on shifting her moving in date over the next few days. on top of that due to the COVID-19 restrictions, she has to be quarantined at a govt designated facility and when asked, she deflected the question

Only after i did some search did i come across the exact same scam happening to others the past few months. I am lucky to not have lost any money to this scam and was already thinking of going to the police report the impersonation of the person and illegal usage of the IC

So beware If someone approaches you to give you months' of rental in advance with no questions asked