Singaporeans lose thousands after US property scheme turns sour

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/si...our#xtor=CS1-2

Quote:Almost all his savings were wiped out. This included money for his family, two schoolgoing children and holiday plans.

Mr Kenneth Ng, 43, never imagined himself to be a real estate investor, but after listening to a speaker at a property seminar, he invested almost all of his $80,000 savings.

The supply chain executive, who earns $8,000 a month, bought a "fixer-upper" in the US city of Memphis for US$55,000 (S$74,500).

A fixer-upper is real estate slang for a property that needs maintenance work, such as redecoration, reconstruction or redesign, before it can be lived in. That was in 2013. Mr Ng never got the promised returns.

The property guru who made the sales pitch? She stopped taking calls and answering e-mails. Then out of the blue, Mr Ng received letters from lawyers in the US telling him to pay up or the property would face foreclosure.

Mr Ng, who has never been to the US, sent two cheques of US$4,000 and US$5,000 to keep the bank at bay. He is not the only one to put their trust in the US property scheme - others had invested in houses in Indianapolis.

One investor bought two properties - the first in Memphis, the other in Indianapolis - through the same scheme. She even made a video 10 months ago, praising the scheme and the woman behind it.

Now, the same investor is singing a different tune, saying that her cheques to the banks to stop the foreclosure of her homes are currently stuck at a US lawyer's office.

And the promised returns? She said she only received one month's worth of rent from the Memphis property. The investor, who spoke to The New Paper on Sunday, declined to be identified and is holding out for money to be returned.

A group of these investors contacted TNPS to tell their story. Some are civil servants. A couple are in between jobs, but most have regular jobs.

All of them have put their trust in a woman who allegedly told them she would handle everything, from the loans to legal letters.

There was nothing for the investors to do other than to wait for their money to grow at returns of between 14.5 and 22.3 per cent.

They were told they would own the properties, which would be repaired before being rented out within three to six months. And when values go up, they would be flipped. It was just too easy............................



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