Lost billions after a call to 'buy land urgently at a high price'

'Thao túng tâm lý', chiêu thức lừa đảo mới trong mua bán nhà đất - Ảnh 1. — Illustration photo: TTO documents

As reported by Tuoi Tre Online , after the article "Real estate brokers' trick of buying quickly at high prices and selling quickly at low prices to lure customers into traps", many readers who were victims of this trick continued to speak out.

What are those tricks? How can we avoid these increasingly sophisticated traps?

Here are readers' stories and expert advice.

Being "tricked" into buying land

Sharing with Tuoi Tre Online, Ms. NP (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City) bitterly recounted the story of being scammed through the "quick land purchase at high price" trick of which she was the victim.

Ms. P. said she had advertised a piece of land for sale in Dong Nai for over 1 billion VND. A few days later, she received a call from a female broker, saying that there was a customer who urgently needed to buy it for over 2 billion VND. To gain trust, this broker said that the real estate market was hot, so Ms. P. thought she had "got" a "big" customer.

Mrs. P. was very excited and hurriedly arranged to take the guest to see the land.

At the meeting place, Ms. P. did not see any customers but only met the broker and kept talking about land investment opportunities elsewhere.

Then at the right time, the land buyer appeared and promised to buy the land for 2 billion VND, double the original selling price and promised to deposit 500 million VND.

"There is a ^100m2 plot of land in Trang Bom (Dong Nai), the price is very reasonable," the broker said, then suggested that Ms. P. use the money to invest in a new plot so that the money can make money, after "making a profit" of 1 billion VND.

After just a few meetings and persuasion with the participation of the person who promised to buy the land, Ms. P. listened and decided to buy the land for 3.8 billion VND, depositing 1 billion VND in advance.

According to the agreement, Ms. P. only needed to pay an additional 500 million VND, the remaining 500 million would be deducted from the amount that the customer who bought land from Ms. P. promised to deposit (in fact, it was a trap set by the broker).

As a result, Ms. P. bought the above land lot for nearly 3.8 billion VND, while the market price was only 1.6 billion.

"I don't understand why at that time my mind was not clear and I made such a quick decision. Normally, if someone offered to buy land, I would be very cautious, it would be impossible to get me out of the house to see it. But with the trick of asking to buy land and offering a very high price, I was overwhelmed and gradually lured in," Ms. P. recounted the "painful" experience.

Ms. P. said she could not sue anyone because the land was residential and had a red book, but it was only more than double the market price.

This is not the first case of falling into the above situation.

Ms. D.T. (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City) also reported to Tuoi Tre Online that not long ago she received a call from a stranger claiming to be a real estate broker.

This person saw her selling an apartment in District 1 for nearly 4 billion VND, but said there was a customer who would pay 4.5 billion VND and wanted to "buy it urgently".

Ms. T. was happy because she suddenly sold the apartment for a higher price than expected, so she quickly made an appointment with the broker and the customer to come and see it. However, the broker asked to meet her at a coffee shop with the customer instead of coming to see the apartment.

Fearing fraud, Ms. T. firmly refused to go and only transacted at home. Seeing this, the other broker also disappeared.

enough tricks

Speaking with Tuoi Tre Online , Mr. Dinh Minh Tuan - Southern region director of Batdongsan.com.vn, a member of Property Guru Group - said that in the past, many people were tricked into going on "land tours", targeting those who wanted to buy real estate.

Currently, according to Mr. Tuan, the trick is still to lure customers, but these people have switched to targeting people who are selling real estate or actively asking to buy from anyone who owns real estate.

Mr. Tuan said there was a case of selling land for 2 billion VND/plot but the subjects approached offered up to 2.5 billion VND. Then they staged a scene to manipulate psychology with the "blue army, red army" trick and put them in a trap like the case of Ms. NP above.

Notably, according to Mr. Tuan, the entire transaction was in accordance with the procedure, the land was purchased with guaranteed legality. "The only thing is, the selling price will be 2 or 3 times more expensive than the market price," Mr. Tuan said.

Even if people know they are being cheated, they can't do anything because it is an agreement between two parties.

Meanwhile, an expert from OneHousing recommends that when buying real estate, buyers must definitely go to the place to carefully examine the property they intend to buy. In addition, they should go with someone experienced to be able to accurately assess the location of the land plot, the border area, the road, the space...

According to experts, buyers should not pay all at once or deposit too much money when buying.

To make the deposit contract more strict, the buyer should contact the notary office for full consultation and draft deposit documents in accordance with legal regulations.

The deposit should be calculated to match the value of the property, to avoid losing money if the homeowner changes his mind and doesn't want to sell or the buyer doesn't want to buy anymore.