u/One-Palpitation8004

This is the third and final post about an unpleasant experience I had during my 6-month stay in Tokyo.

I was scammed for the rent of my apartment (made as a lump-sum payment upfront for 6 months) by the real-estate agent. Recently, he was arrested, and we reached a settlement. You can read more details here:

Part one: Real estate agent ran away with rent payment

Part two: e-housing agent scammed me for over a million yen

In this third part, I want to focus on the landlord, Ricardo (Ricky) Farinas, owner of the outdoor/sports event and travel company Tokyo Gaijins (tokyogaijins.com). Most of the difficulties and stress I suffered these past few months from this case can be (directly or indirectly) attributed to him.

From the get go, when the agent turned out to be fraudulent, Ricardo tried to pin it on me and wanted to make me pay for the damages. I got in touch with the agency (E-housing) where the agent had worked at previously. We scheduled a date where we would all jointly visit the police station: the landlord, a representative of E-housing, and I. He used the opportunity to get E-housing on his side and to try to intimidate me jointly. At the police station, he was just listing all the mistakes I made (like not noticing that the agency was not mentioned on the contract, not ensuring that the contract was written correctly, etc.) instead of focusing on the perpetrator, the agent. I told him that we should not fight between us, since we were both victims of the same crime, but to no avail, as it seems.

After the meeting, he and the representative told me that I had to sign a new contract. According to them, the current contract I had was invalid, and therefore I had to sign the new one asap to be ok with the authorities. Their "generous" (their words) proposal was that I pay rent again, but to a 50% discount and no deposit, agency fee, or key money. I made the counteroffer of splitting the losses 50-50 (which would have amounted to me paying slightly less than the 50% of the rent that they asked for - details in pt. 1) with a clause in the contract that also the gains would be split 50-50, should the police investigation amount to anything. They refused my counteroffer.

From then on, Ricardo kept pressuring me to sign the new contract. When he gave me an ultimatum after two months, I told him that I would make a decision after my appointment for a lawyer's consultation the following week. That's when all of a sudden he let go of his demand and said that I could stay in the apartment without a new contract. He said, "Actually, I don’t want you to spend more money on legal counseling. I came from a really poor background and became successful in life because I always treat people well. I will do just like that. I will try to talk to eHousing and provide you a contract so we both get peace of mind." I never got a new contract, however. I just stayed for the full rental period under the original contract.

From the beginning, Ricardo had a lot more information than me, since he had been the agents friend and had done real-estate business with him (and with E-housing) before. While I had never met either of them before renting the unit. For example, he knew that the agent had worked at E-housing for many years, rumors that he had gotten into money problems due to getting into crypto, and that he was apparently in Bali now. He told me that I would most likely not receive any money from the police investigation.

Now to the final cherry on top that prompted me to write this follow-up post. The agent was recently arrested, and I was contacted by his public defender for a settlement. Upon handing the keys over to Ricardo when I moved out, he told me that, apparently, the agent's mother would be paying the settlement. He said that he felt bad for the mother and didn't care about the money, and if it was up to him, he would prefer that the agent just go to prison for a bit longer.

However, later, I discovered through the defender that Ricardo had asked and gotten the full rent back. For that reason, I contacted Ricardo to ask for my deposit, to which he responded he would not give it to me since he "let me live in his apartment for five months without charging rent". I asked if anything was amiss with the apartment (since I knew everything was perfectly fine with it), and instead of responding to my question, he said that I should go after the agent for any more money and that he would end all communication with me now.

Luckily, I had anticipated that I would probably not get the deposit from him and therefore demanded the deposit in my settlement. However, his behavior does not sit well with me because:

A) He now made 480,000 Yen (the pricey deposit) on top of what he would have made from just renting out the apartment.

B) I did not get any additional compensation in the settlement. I was only returned the exact amount that was stolen from me (which is now worth less due to the steep inflation on Yen). After getting the stolen money back, these are the damages that I have suffered through this story:

• monetary damages:
  • I was not able to move out and move into a cheaper apartment (or else I would have gained nothing in return for the money I had already paid), which I would have preferred due to a change in my living situation.
• psychological stress:
  • disputes with several parties,
  • bad rapport with the landlord,
  • threat of eviction.
• lost time for my boss and me:
  • collecting all the evidence,
  • 2 lawyer visits,
  • 2 government office visits,
  • countless phone calls,
  • 8 visits to the police station, 3 with my boss.

C) The mother of the agent (if that part is true) had to pay more than her son stole in order to enrich the landlord.

This is the final post I want to make about this case. I got off comparatively lightly, since the stolen money was eventually returned, and I want to move on now. Hope you all had a good time reading about my struggles and could learn something from it, so you won't end up in a similar situation.