Before You Select a Tenant

Our all savings are parked in an extra property.   We have rented it out.

My husband takes extra care of it as he is quite passionate about his hard earned assets.  This time when the existing tenant vacated it, as usual he got it repainted, and beautified it like a new bride.  He can handle upto this flawlessly but when it comes to  e-transactions, he is not at all willing to upgrade himself.  His anxiety level touches the next level just by reading any e-fraud in newspaper or on Whatsapp.  Initially he was very reluctant to install even WhatsApp but he had to when his patients persisted.

Yesterday he called  and asked me to share my paytm details with the new would be tenant, lets call him Ranjit.  I was pretty sure that he would have done due homework before saying yes to  him.  So, without raising even a single query I shared the paytm details when the new tenant, Ranjit called me.

Well, now started the trap which although lasted for only five minutes or so over phone, yet made me write this post.

This Ranjit talked very politely but his rough accent  conveyed clearly  that he was not any well educated type. He said, “madam ji, please talk to our Accountant Sir as he will be transferring the rent amount to your paytm account”, and,  the next person came on call. In a speedy manner as if he was very busy with so much workload, he hurriedly started speaking, “sister, first I will send one rupee to your account and you confirm me and after that I will transfer rest of it.”

So far no problem, so I said okay to it. Now his trap started expanding. He said, “sister, see how much amount is in your account if your paytm is linked to your bank account, note it down, then you keep the app open and be on phone. As soon as I send one rupee, you please  confirm. 

I said, “why?”. There is no need of this. You send the money and when I receive SMS from paytm or bank, I will tell you and then you may proceed.”  He started to convince me by saying technical details as also his office functioning that this Ranjit is working in Defence canteen, and his HRA needs be deducted, so I have to complete the transaction in one go…. Bla… Blaa… Blaaaa.  This made me confused and just a little irritated but not suspicious as such.  I said, “please give the phone to Ranjit”, and he did,  still building a hurry hurry situation. I asked Ranjit, “beta, have you met Dr. Jain in person?” He said,  ” no”. This is when an intuition crossed my mind that my very ignorant husband must have flawed somewhere. I asked Ranjit that I will first talk to my husband and then accept rent, and disconnected the call without going further into the conversation.

When I called my husband, it was surprising to find that he had  finalised the tenant over phone itself, by merely looking at WhatsApp images of his identity card and all that. This Ranjit had called him after brousing 99acre.com, as our property is listed on 99acre.

When I told him the talk I had regarding use of paytm, he immediately said, “okay, I will tell Ranjit that we are not interested to give him our house on rent.” He didn’t want to discuss further.

When this episode was discussed at home with my daughters, elder one said yes mamma, these days many frauds are being reported in similar manner – of taking details from 99acre. This was when my suspicion and intuition got a support and I knew that this has saved us from a big fraud.  Am sure my bank account could have been compromised, hacked or emptied…. Who knows?

Just yesterday this has happened with us so I thought of quickly sharing it here.  This would help property owners to be extra vigilant while choosing tenants and doing financial transactions.

Please be informed, be vigilant and keep upgrading your self.  We are into 21st century. Our obsolete style of doing things has simply no place in this era. 🙏

Jai Shri Hari😊😊