I’d treasured Move in Day for a while. It marked the end of foreign alarms in Singapore, dusty Air Con in the Philippines, and stiff bunks in Laos. It meant no more backpack rummaging for slightly damp swim trunks. I’d final have a bathroom to leave a toothbrush and shampoo bottle. Move in Day would erase discomfort. Move in Day would resume regular life.
But upon waking up on February 29th, I realized that the mere arrival of the date wasn’t an existential antidote. There were things I needed to do. So, before I even lifted my lids, incomplete tasks poured onto my brain. Locate passport. Message host. Return building card. Bring an extra scooter helmet. I self-ejected my head off the pillow, which sent blood crashing against my already compromised cranium. Disoriented, I stubbed my toe then stumbled around my room, searching for missing socks and my phone before spilling out towards the rest of the apartment. Luckily, Eli was awake so I had an ear to mop up my anxiety.
While packing up our electronics in the living room, I asked Eli if he’d messaged Derrick, our agent. He said we didn’t need him there. We just needed to show our contract to reception. They’d figure it out. As I was learning, Vietnam life included a lot of “figuring it out”. It’s what got me a scooter, basketball runs, house tours, and a visa. I guess it would also get me a home.
After an hour, we assembled a big and small suitcase, four lumpy backpacks, two duffle bags, a drawstring bag, a poster roll, and two fanny packs at the entrance. After a final scan of our AirBnB, we lifted our lives from elevator to lobby to Grab van trunk.
Five minutes later, we arrived at our new home: Masteri Tower 2. The front desk had no one behind it, so we piled our belongings on a wall then began another popular Saigon activity: waiting.
We sat on the same leather cushions where we signed our contract 6 days earlier. We checked the time then fell into silence. I contemplated my sore legs (from last night’s basketball) and mild headache (from the post-game beers). Then I scanned the lobby. Skinny, masked security guards meandered across the shiny floor, checking out our bag collection then nodding to us. Real-estate agents started tours with handshakes. Grocery shoppers and gym bag carriers trickled in and out the sliding doors, eying us, wondering if these two sweaty foreigners were their new neighbors. I didn’t see any casual conversation: neighbors saying hi. We were the only non-employees who weren’t in transit. Hot, I scanned the ceiling for vents and noted the cheap chandeliers and small security cameras. Then impatience drained my curiosity and I just stared ahead, ready for our cards, our rooms, our permanent resident status.
Half an hour later, a small lady in a company uniform showed up behind the desk. Eli brought our contract to her. We stood there as her masked-face went to and fro between the paper and her computer. Instead of handing over an entry card, she raised her eyebrow and asked who our contact was. Contact? Well, we have the owner’s information on the back of the contract, we answered. After squinting at the computer, she told us: “This is not the owner of the room.”
I looked at Eli. Eli looked at me. And as we looked at the contract, trying to make sense of our dilemma, I felt Move in Day getting ripped out of my cushiony brain by the mechanized hands of economy, management, security, and law. This was no longer an uplifting opener to a chapter in my life. This had become about processing the fact that the low-resolution headshot on our contract wasn’t the dude who actually owned the property.
Sensing our confusion, the lady told us to call our agent. Eli called Derrick, the man we thought was our agent, the man who gave us this contract, the man who took 950 bucks from us. His number was cancelled. Eli opened Facebook to check messenger. Derrick’s profile was deleted. We realized we couldn’t contact Derrick.
We realized Derrick scammed us.
The desk lady didn’t see this as her problem. She didn’t offer solutions or advice. She didn’t call anybody else. She simply nodded to our, admittedly scatterbrain, questions. And when I noticed a line behind us, I turned to Eli and said, “Let’s sit down.”
On those damned couches, we accepted reality and verbalized, “We just got robbed of 1000 bucks—and a home.” All we had now was a fake contract and a scammer’s cancelled number. After voicing it, after sketching the shape of our misfortune, Eli looked at the surrounding normality and asked why we were the only ones who saw this as a problem. Why did it seem like nobody cared?
The owner, first of all, should care! Did he know that scammers knew the code to his front door? Did he know that thieves were strolling around his room? Did he know that security was letting them in? Did he know he was wasting money on his real estate team? Didn’t he want someone to actually move in? Did he know that people were being told they could live in his pad? Did he know that dirty money was being made off his crib?
And what about the building, Masteri? Were they aware that fake contracts were being signed in their lobbies? Did the front desk know they were opening up the entrance to scammers? Did they know crimes occurred around young kids skipping through the lobby? Wasn’t the whole point of security to prevent illegal acts?
Inspired by the widening scope of our problem, we returned to the front desk. The lady stood up. As our volume rose, she became quieter. At our behest, she called the real owner. She cupped her hand on the receiver’s bottom and whispered. We waited. Then she hung up and summarized that the owner had not been informed that anyone was moving today. Unsatisfied, I put my hands out and asked what we should do. Should we just live in this lobby? She said we should call the police. Ok, we’ll call the police. She gave us their number.
We sat on the leather couches, again. I suddenly remembered that I had a video. I had a video of the second time we saw the apartment! The one we sent Kyle! Forensically scrubbing through, I couldn’t locate Derrick (who’d slyly hid behind a wall), but I screenshotted a frame where I had the full body and face of the female real-estate agent who was there, who was possibly Derrick’s partner in crime. Progress! Now we had a face, evidence we’d been in the apartment, and an exact timestamp of our visit.
Re-returning to the desk, I expected a sigh, but the desk lady robotically and respectfully heard us out out. She looked at the picture on my phone. She said she didn’t recognize the girl. We asked if they had video footage of last Sunday. “Here’s the exact time we were in the lobby, elevator, hallway, and room!” She said they deleted their tapes after a day. Eli and I threw our hands in the air, let out an exasperated laugh, and realized we weren’t getting help in this useless lobby. After stowing our stuff behind a locked door, we set out for the police station.
The noon sun threateningly dangled above our heads. On the sidewalk, I felt like a rabbit under hungry eagles. I felt as if I was strolling through the hood with a platinum necklace and a gold Rolex. I felt as if I was prey, as if I was naked, as if cosmic karma was making me pay back for all that privileged life.
In order to halt the negativity, I stopped walking. I looked Eli in the face and said, “Man, we’re in the middle of some shit right now. But I just want to take a moment to say I’m grateful I’m not going through this alone.” After a strong hug, I said we needed to think before acting. Should we be going to the police now? Was this our current priority?
Yes, we were upset. We wanted justice, revenge, and our money. But, also, our AirBnb was expiring, so we didn’t have a place to sleep. And did we even know what we were going to say to the police? With the world spinning too fast, I leaned on old advice: don’t make big decisions on any empty stomach.
We settled on a diner, Eddie’s. Upon entry, the white manager warmly asked us how we were doing. Eli gave him the routine: “fine.” I was about to say the same, but I stopped and said, “Actually, we’re not fine.” “Oh no. Why not?” “Well, I don’t want to get into it, but we got scammed.” “Damn! Sounds like you guys need a beer!” It was noon. “Thanks but I’m good on the beer,” I said. Eli accepted the offer, but I continued shaking my head. “How about a shot? Tequila?” I declined with a laugh. “How about a mixed drink?” “Man, I’m not down to drink right now.” “How about a coke? We can make cherry coke. We make vanilla coke. We can make cherry-vanilla coke.” “I’ll take a vanilla coke. Thanks man. I appreciate that.”
We sat at an old-fashioned booth. While waiting for our food, we decided what to say to the cops: this was a theft in a high-traffic area. Then I booked another AirBnB. Five minutes later, after I’d already paid with my credit card, the AirBnB host messaged me back, saying she couldn’t give me the room because of COVID reasons. She told me to cancel the room, but, when I read the cancel page, it told me I’d lose payment for the first night. When I messaged her this information, she stopped replying to me. I looked up at Eli and said, “You know what would be nice? Not to get scammed.”
We let out a bunch of self-deprecating and world-loathing jokes, booked another AirBnB, and finished off a breakfast burrito and an avocado BLT along with our free drinks. Then we went back into that boxing ring of a world.
The police station didn’t have a front door. Behind the open steel gate was a small parking area in front of an open-air terrace where a cop, seated at a small plastic table, lifted his head to our scooter’s hum. We went up two steps then told him we’d like to report a theft. He turned to a woman sitting across from him at the table. She translated for us, and from then on, she became our translator. The cop asked her to ask us how much we lost. We said 22 million. She said oh no. She translated to the policeman. He sat up straighter.
We told our story to the lady. She told the cop. He asked for Derrick’s number then took out his own iPhone, which had folded up American bills under a transparent case. We didn’t realize he’d mistakenly copied the number of the Masteri building, so, when he dialed and got an answer, Eli and I got very excited before returning to the emotional state of the day: frustration. When he called Derrick, there was –of course– no answer. Then he told us there was nothing he could do for us today. He told us to come back on Monday with someone who could speak Vietnamese.
We walked back to Masteri to inform them that the cops were involved and to retrieve our refugeed luggage. There was a new guy at the front desk instead of the shook lady. For the sake of trying, I flashed him the picture of the real-estate girl from my video. He stood up, wagged his finger, and said, “I know her. I know this girl!” After cross-referencing the times on my phone with the visitation binder, we found her name: Pham. We also saw that she’d been doing tours and showing people our theoretical home all week, including the previous night.
The helpful front desk dude waved over some real-estate agents who were heading out the door. They reluctantly came over but started to gain interest while flipping through our contract and hearing our story. One agent, Anthony, told us that he knew this unit. He also knew the owner and that he’d had the spot for 5 years. Anthony said, “I will help you.”
Anthony got our numbers. I sent Anthony the screenshot of Pham. Anthony attracted other real-estate agents to our cause; we were no longer alone in our quest for justice and money retrieval. Until the windows were dark, we floated around the lobby, showing agents our contract, listening to Vietnamese chatter, and passing our numbers to anyone willing to help. Deploying varying levels of English vocabulary, we recounted our scam story over and over again. This repetition forced us to let go of our naiveté-based shame. We moved on because we understood that spreading our story to the agents, who passed through this lobby everyday, was our best chance at resolution. Without serious police effort, we weren’t going to catch Derrick, but, if we could get Pham, we could get some answers.
At around 8 p.m., we were shaking hands with the real-estate contingent. For some reason, a bunch of them agreed to go down with us to the police station the next morning. Anthony assured us he would message us if any news came up.
Exhausted from all the thinking and talking, we were ready to bow out of the chase for the day. We tried our best. Yet, lifting up all our supposed-to-be-unpacked belongings, getting back into a Grab van, opening the door of our Air BnB, and looking at the same living room we thought we were leaving 8 hours earlier, sent us one last blast of shame, inspiring Eli to throw his stuff on the ground and scream out a primal, “Fuck!”
Because we deserved it, we ordered some fried chicken and bought a lot of beer. We sat on the couch and complained like bitter old men. While checking my phone for the location of the Grab driver, I got a call from Anthony. “Hello?” “Alex?” “Yes.” “We found her. She is here.”
Supposedly, Pham, the possible scamming accomplice, was at Masteri. Anthony told us that his boss and her boss wanted to meet. Half an hour later, after sticking our chicken in the microwave to retain some of its initial heat and putting our beers in the fridge to keep them cold, we got on Eli’s bike and headed back to the lobby, hoping it would be less useless than it had been all day.
Eli dropped me off and went to park in the garage. I walked into the lobby and found six people sitting on the couch, deep in discussion. I said hi to Anthony then saw Pham. She seemed small next to all the couch-lounged bodies. Sporting the same puppy dog eyes, my impulse was that she was innocent. But, after this day, this scam, I felt it was my responsibility to doubt more. I needed to start trusting less. After a couple minutes, everyone stood up and shook my hand. Anthony pointed me back to the youngest looking guy out of the bunch and said this is my boss. He said his name was Tony. He informed me we were going to a boardroom, which surprised me. I’d anticipated soft questioning on the lobby couches, so the formality of “boardroom” injected me with hope. At least these guys were taking it seriously. And, heading into a meeting, it didn’t hurt that Tony spoke excellent English.
The table was a big oval and sat eight people. Four people leaned on the wall. When Eli came in, five people leaned on the wall. On one side were Anthony, Tony, Eli, and I. On the other side were Pham, Pham’s boss, a cute, note-taking girl, and another random dude who never spoke.
First, we recounted the basic events. Using exact times recorded on the back of our contract, we gave a detailed summary of the events related to Derrick and Pham. Tony translated to the other side of the table. After we were done, he slid our contract to Pham’s boss. Everyone was silent as he flipped through the pages. He laughed that Derrick didn’t even sign the paper. Then he informed us that official documents got official agent stamps (something we’d heard 10 times that day). Then he invited Pham to share her side of things. I looked at her, nodding as if I understood Vietnamese. When Tony translated, I couldn’t decide whether to look at Tony or Pham.
Interestingly, she admitted to seeing us sign this fake contract through the Masteri lobby window. As Pham’s boss had said contracts needed stamps, why, I asked, did she not come in when she saw us signing something?
Through Tony’s mouth, she responded that she had heard us talk about Tropic Gardens (another apartment in the neighborhood), so she just assumed that we were signing a Tropic Gardens contract.
This response furrowed our brows. Why would we sign a contract for an apartment in another building’s lobby? Why would we come back to a room twice if we weren’t interested in renting it? Also, even if she wasn’t very good at English, didn’t she see Derrick shake our hands, a universally regarded symbol for closing a deal?
She defended her truth by saying that she didn’t see us. She stayed outside of the room. It was Vietnamese custom, an act of respect, to be out of sight when agreements were made between client and agent.
We let her finish. While there were some holes in her story, the agents, Eli, and I got the impression that she was innocent; she was not in cahoots with Derrick. Instead, this seemed to be a classic case for “don’t attribute malevolence where you can attribute ignorance and laziness”. She wasn’t a schemer; she was just a lousy real estate agent. First, despite being around real estate agents all the time, she was unable to sniff out Derrick’s sketchiness. Second, she didn’t catch Derrick offering us fake prices on the rooms (he told us 950 while telling Pham 1200/month). Third, she let us into a unit twice, and, on the second time, didn’t pick up or inquire into any signs that we accepted an offer on a property she was responsible for selling. Fourth, she ignored us signing a contract in the lobby where she worked. Fifth, she never attempted to communicate with us. Sixth, she never reported any of this to her bosses. What probably happened: Pham caught a whiff that Derrick was off but did a cost-benefit analysis, deciding that an uncomfortable confrontation with a potential scammer wasn’t worth helping two foreigners.
After settling that Derrick was the sole criminal, Pham’s boss’s face went red and he spat intense Vietnamese. It turned out that Anthony had posted the picture of Pham (which I’d sent to him) in a massive real-estate group chat along with a caption that she’d stolen money from foreigners. Pham’s boss was understandably angry because this had done reputational damage to Pham and, collaterally, his whole team. As this was translated to us after the argument, we sat there in confusion, wondering whether the loud machine-gun diction was being fired our way or not.
After Tony clarified it was not and that we shouldn’t worry because he was handling it, we started wrapping up the meeting. The cute lady had recorded important facts. They were going to draft an official letter. On Monday morning, we would visit the Masteri main office together to inform them of the event and, hopefully, get some security camera footage. Then we would go down to the police station.
But, before we left, Pham’s boss asked Tony then Tony asked us for a favor. Could we take a picture with Pham to post in the real-estate group as proof that the problem was resolved? This would confirm her innocence. We said sure, as Eli and I understood that “saving face” was important in many Asian cultures. Despite Pham’s complaints that she wasn’t dressed or made-up for a picture, her boss encouraged her come to our side of the table. We leaned in together and put our thumbs up. Pham covered her cheeks with peace-sign fingers.
We left the meeting feeling encouraged. The contract scam was bigger than we’d initially thought. There was a reason the bosses had come in.
First, the crime was a threat to the realtor group’s existing clients. The agents were middlemen: their profits were tied to their reputation for efficiently renting homes for property owners. This scam, which happened under their watch, resulted in the apartment owner receiving angry calls from the front desk, two foreigners, and the police. This headache could push him to switch real estate companies. He could also tell his friends what happened. What would neighbors say about real-estate agents letting in scammers next door?
Second, the crime was bad for potential clients. Through hanging around a lobby for eight hours and visiting the police, Eli and I had displayed dedication to getting justice and revenge—we weren’t going away. If we weren’t appeased, we could post a well-crafted hit piece titled “Scammers in Masteri” on a Saigon Facebook group that had over 100,000 members. Social media was the main news source for expats and had the power to scare their money away from Masteri. Pham and Tony’s boss and all those who fed their family by rent commissions didn’t want that.
We ended the day slumped on our old couch. Our bags were piled in the middle of the living room floor. We didn’t have the heart to unzip them and put anything away. We didn’t have the 950 bucks we had last Sunday morning. We didn’t have a home. All we had was cold chicken and cheap beer.