Housing Wahala #2 – The Agent Was Kind. He Also Scammed Me. 

This is a Ghana rental scam story. Except the scammer was kind, the landlady was absent, and I was the one who handed over the cash.

I was once young and stupid and this housing wahala, I could have honestly avoided. But I was desperate and low on cash and I paid for it.

Back in 2021, I needed to move house but didn’t have the full 1 year advance landlords were demanding. I started looking for short stay rentals but those usually come fully furnished and are way more expensive and often priced in US dollars. I only had 6-months rent, but needed space for a year.

I went apartment hunting with the stress of paying absurd viewing fees, finding accommodation that didn’t match what was online, travelling across the city to neighborhoods you wouldn’t believe existed in Accra and dealing with perhaps, “generally speaking”, the most frustratingly unprofessional group of people you’d ever work with – real estate agents. Gosh they’re a headache!

I endured all of this stress until I met Michael of Filz Property. He was different. He was kind, understanding and genuinely wanted to help. He also “scammed” me. I use scam here loosely and you’ll understand in a bit.

Michael had just moved house and was hell-bent on helping me find a place. He was also trying to recover the rest of his rent from his landlady, considering he stayed in his apartment for just a month. After going on multiple rounds with me across the city and understanding my situation, he made a simple and helpful offer.

Pay him the 6-months I had, to offset the amount his stubborn landlady needed to refund him, while I figure out the remaining 6 months. He had after all, taken it on himself to find a replacement tenant since the landlady was struggling to find someone. The plan was perfect in principle and very straightforward.

Except, it wasn’t. More on that later.

We spoke with the landlady, she asked that we come meet her. She never made time to meet because, hey, she was busy and lived far away. That went for about 2 weeks but both Filz and I were running out of time.

Understanding the nature of his arrangement with the landlady, I stupidly handed over the cash to rent the place for 6 months. Having spoken with the landlady and loosely agreeing the details, I thought I was covered. All that was left was for the tenancy agreement which this landlady never showed up for.

At a time I thought I had found myself a temporary place for the next 6 months – 1 year, a knock on the door while i was cleaning my newly acquired rental dashed everything. The landlady’s brother conveniently showed up after I had started cleaning and moving in to announce the landlady was not in agreement.

Phew! I was ducked – if you replace the d with an f.

Turns out, the landlady had beef with Filz and I was caught in the crossfire.

I told Filz the situation and demanded a refund. After much struggle, I managed to retrieve about 86% of my original amount. I gave up on the remainder after a year.

Was I stupid? Absolutely. Was I finessed? Ha! I was oooo. I found out much later Filz property was deep in debt and had done other “scam-worthy” stunts on other people from not paying workers to selling and renting property. I actually had it good compared to some of the stories I heard later.

But enough about my stupidity and more on our broken system.

I didn’t need to go through this if the 6-month advance payment was the standard, or if there was sufficient infrastructure that protects both tenants and landlords. I didn’t need to go through this if both real estate agents and landlords are regulated.

And yet I did. And I bet so have many others. Because in Ghana, we have a market that has no short-stay infrastructure, no agent regulation and no tenant protection. The perfect ingredients for every part of this nasty pot of jollof to be cooked.

So, in your opinion, was I scammed? Who scammed me? Landlady? Agent? Myself? Because, rental scams in Ghana don’t always look like a fake landlord and a stolen key. Sometimes the system just leaves enough gaps for everyone to fail you at once.

Actually, was I just scammed by the system?

Chale e hard oo.

Pssst…This was inspired by a recent X post about one Obed being scammed of his GHS28,000 rent by a fake landlord. It reminded me of my own situation. The video below has more. The YouTube video by Gossip24 Avenue has since been made private. I’ve included a TikTok instead.