Dishonesty, The Worst Policy

It is natural for us to expect blatant dishonesty in certain types of people. For example, we can expect gamblers to be dishonest. We can also expect illegal hawkers and unlicensed taxi drivers or ‘pirate taxis’ as we call them, to be dishonest. Expecting certain people to be dishonest, is helping in that we can avoid dealing with them or when dealing with them we can be on our guard.

But what is surprising is that some people whose positions suggest that they just have to be honest turn out to be dishonest. I have met dishonest people in areas where we just expect them to be honest. One example is when I met a dishonest traffic policeman. He stopped my father’s car, when we were not committing any offense at all, he threatened to give us a ticket unless we paid him something. As we were in a foreign country, Papa paid up quietly and even thanked the corrupt policeman.

Another occasion was in Singapore itself. We wanted to rent a house for ourselves, while our own was being renovated. We wanted to stay for only three months.We placed an advertisement in the newspapers and several housing agents called. As we wanted to save on the agent’s fees, we decided to deal only with homeowners. As things turned out, that was a big mistake.

A man called in the evening and told us to come to an address. He claimed to be the owner of a bungalow.We were happy, as the location was not far from our house and also the rent seemed to be more reasonable.When we arrived, a well-dressed man greeted us at the door. He let us in and took us on a tour around the house. We were impressed. The house was just what we needed. Then we sat down and discussed business. It never occurred to us to ask how come he lived in such a big house.

He demanded a deposit of two month’s rent and told us we had to pay immediately if we wanted to rent the house. My father said that he would pay the next day, but the man said that in that case he could not promise that he could hold the house for us. He told us that he expected someone else to call later on and it he paid the deposit, he would get the house. Dad looked at all of us and saw from the looks in our eyes that we wanted the house very much. He took out his cheque book and made out the sum.

For no reason at all, I decided to look in the paper again the next day in the afternoon. This time I wanted to see if anyone had advertised a house for rent. Imagine my shock when I saw that ‘our’ house was advertised as being for rent. I showed the advertisement to Dad and he called the number immediately. A lady answered the phone. Dad sat down after the call and then collected himself and dashed to his car. I went with him. We went to the police.

As it turned out, the man who took the cheque had cashed it that morning. We learnt later that he was a professional confidence trickster and had cheated many people – with the same ruse. No one knew how he got the keys to the house he used for his scams. He had obviously known the movements of the people of the houses that he operated in. He was never caught. One good thing happened though; the owner rented the house to us. But we lost three thousand dollars.

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