Share house scam

[Naja]

I responded to the residential add for the share house.
I paid in cash 10,000 yen to book a room and then 30,000 yen on the day I signed the lease contract.
Of course I had seen the house before I decided to take it and on this occasion ‘ owner ‘ who showed me the house told me about the things he would have ready and would do to the house to when people started moving in.
The house was, according to the advertisement already opened , but when I finally moved in, the house was still not finished with many of the things ‘ owner ‘ had promised.
These included no internet, as the advertisement had promised. Nor was there a stove so we, the residents could not cook for more than 2 weeks. We were also promised a TV that did not come until 3 weeks after I moved in.
There was no furniture in the rooms in which the images in the advertisement had expressed, resulting in me sleeping on a towel directly on the floor the first night I spend in my new room.
When I moved in there lived one other person in the house, an American and he told me that the ‘ owner ‘ was not the real owner of the house, but was illegally renting it from someone else.
The ‘owner ‘ then started harassing me for me to pay a deposit of 40,000 yen (same price as my room which according to the residential ad should only cost 30,000 yen).
Since I did not have 40,000 yen in cash, but on my Danish internet bank account, I asked if I could transfer the money electronically to his account. He then told me that it could not happen, since it would take his account two weeks to receiving the money. I kept pressuring him, as it seemed strange that he would only receive the money in cash and that I have never heard that it could take so long to receive money electronically.
After living in the house for 4 days neither bed, internet, TV or stove had arrived as prommised, I decided to move out on November 1st. I wrote this in a mail to the ‘ owner ‘ and he replied that he did not want me to move and I had to take into account that he had introduced me to a job. So, I asked what he meant by ‘ taking into account ‘. He called me on the phone and told me that he had introduced me to the job, because I had agreed to stay in his share house (which is not true, as he had said that he would introduce me before I had seen the house) and that if I did not pay 40,000 yen in cash to move out before the week was over. So he was black mailing me.
The ‘owner ‘ then contacted my boss at work it ended up with there being deducted 40,000 yen from my salary so I could give money in cash to the ‘ owner ‘.
I felt threatened to give him the money because he made it sound like I would lose my job unless I did it.
I then went to Koto-ku Ward Office to register my new address.
But the problems began when I had to tell which number 9 house I lived in. There were apparently several number 9 houses in the neighborhood and they showed me as a map where I had to identify which house I lived in. I could identify the house from the map since I could only tell where the house was in relation to the metro station and not from some random roads whose names were in kanji. I gave them the phone number of ‘owner’, so that he could tell them where the house was.
The staff came back and told me that he had said that he was not the owner of the house, but a real estate agent and that I lived in the house alone, or something about me living with someone called Aikawa .
At that time lived 5 people in the house. An American, an Indian, one Italian and one from Brazil and me. None of them was named Aikawa .
The ‘owner’ of the house had then given the employees Aikawas phone number so they could call him. Aikawa said that he did not live in the house or knew where it was.
I was totally confused and had to tell the staff that I did not live alone and that ‘the owner’ knew exactly where the house was located, since it is was he who had brought me there and showed it to me.
They called the ‘owner’ again and he kept on lying to them.
Eventually, there were more than 8 people working on my case and trying to find out the truth.
I was then at some point during the ‘process’ told that the ‘owner’ actually had rented the house of the person called Aikawa, who was renting it from the real owner.
The staff told me that they had again tried to call the ‘owner’, but that he no longer answered their calls.
However, we did finally note my address and got it registered when the employees decided to just call the house ‘ Aikawa ‘.
I had then been trapped at the ward office for two hours and was even went past closing hours.
I then confronted the ‘owner’ on mail where I asked him why he had lied to the employees in the office. He replied back that he had not lied to them, but it was me who was confused. And yes, I was confused because I could not see why 8 random staff workers would spend 2 hours lying to me, whereas the ‘owner’ had good reason to if it turned out that the house was illegal.
I then involved my boyfriend in the case and showed him my lease. He is a former real estate agent and could immediately see that my contract was unprofessional and not applicable.
Before we would go to the police, we wanted to be confident that ‘ owner ‘ did not have a valid license of the house, so my boyfriend pretended to be a university student from Hong Kong who was interested in a room over mail. The criteria for my boyfriend to rent a room was that the ‘owner’ had to prove he was the real owner of the house. However the ‘owner’ refused to answer his questions about the house and it ended up with him wanting to involve a lawyer instead of just sending a scanned copy of his license.
Everyone of the tenants had similar experiences with the ‘owner’ and we had all different versions of contracts. In two of the contracts it states that tenants ‘should not talk to the Japanese neighbors’ and that ‘if anyone rings the doorbell, they should say that they do not live in the house, but that they are only friends staying over and that the person ringing the doorbell should call a specified phone number’ (which is the number of Aikawa ).
On October 19th one of the residents had had enough after his cat had been trapped in a travel box for cats for more than 6 hours by the ‘owner’ of the house when the resident was away and the ‘owner’ had to take pictures of the room. The resident then called the police and 5 policemen showed up. Two of them talked to the ‘owner’ and the resident in the resident’s room while the other three were downstairs talking to the ‘owner’s wife and a lady I’ve never seen before, whom turned out to be a neighbor that the resident had had look after his cat.
Since my room was right next to the resident’s, I could hear everything they discussed. It turned out to be an unfair discussion since the resident is American and not as good at Japanese as the ‘owner’ since the policemen could not speak English.
I then had to go to work and had to leave them.
When I came back from work, I was told by the ‘owner’ that the American had started fighting the police which resulted in them taking him to the station and taking all his stuff with them.
The American had tried to tell the police about what was going on here, but was constantly interrupted by the ‘owner’ who repeatedly told police that the house was not a share house . The other residents told me that they had been told by the ‘owner’ to lie to the police if they were asked if they lived in the house. They should reply that they were just friends who were visiting.
There was also later made a new advertisement of the house, which said that my room cost 30,000 yen to rent, even though I was paying 40,000 yen for it.

The ‘owner’s name is Christopher Wood.
The address for the share house is: Koto-ku, Minami-Sunamachi, 4-5-9, 136-0076, Aikawa .
The address for another share house by the same owner: Tokyo, Adachiku, Adachi 4-33-1.

I have already contacted my embassy and insurance company but they were not able to help me. I cannot go to the police because I only know a little Japanese. So stay clear of this man.

[michelleKeymaster]

news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye2202548. html
We have found that he has been arrested for illegal share house business.

Update 2014/06/10 previously provided link is no longer available, we have found some others  http://www.xanthous.jp/2014/05/16/unauthorized-hotel-adachi/

Japanese text from http://read2ch.net/newsplus/1400210771/ in case the link will not work.

This is just a information for you, we do not state that he is guilty.

東京・足立区の住宅で外国人観光客向けの旅館を無許可で営業したとして、 
イギリス人の男が旅館業法違反の疑いで警視庁に逮捕されました。 
調べに対し、「日本では将来、オリンピックもあり 
外国人に低料金の宿泊施設を提供したかった」と供述しているということです。 

逮捕されたのは、イギリス人で東京・足立区の無職、ジェームス・クリストファー・ウッド容疑者（２８）です。 
警視庁の調べによりますと、ウッド容疑者は足立区長の許可を取らずに自分の住宅で旅館を営業し、 
先月までの１か月余りの間にタイ人や中国人など７人を宿泊させたとして、旅館業法違反の疑いが持たれています。 
住宅は木造３階建てで客室が３つありましたが、面積が旅館の基準を満たさないことなどから 
改善したうえで許可を取るよう保健所から１０回にわたり指導を受けていました。 
ウッド容疑者は指導に対し、旅館業の許可が必要ない「シェアハウスだ」と主張していたということです。 
警視庁によりますと、１人１泊、２５００円から５０００円の料金を取っていたということで、 
調べに対しウッド容疑者は容疑を認め、「日本を訪れる外国人は増えていて、 
将来、オリンピックもあり、低料金の宿泊施設を提供したかった」と供述しているということです。 
【「変な建物だなと」】近所に住む７７歳の男性は「建物は古くからある肉屋の店舗を兼ねた住宅だったが、 
２０年くらい前に店主が亡くなり、５～６年前から知らない若い外国人たちが出入りするようになった。 
一度、中を見たことがあるが、住宅の中を板で仕切って２畳から３畳くらいの小部屋をたくさん作り、 
外国人を住まわせたり、宿泊させたりしていたようで、変な建物だなと思っていた」と話していました。 
また、近所に住む別の６０歳の男性は、「入り口に『シェアハウス』と書かれた貼り紙がしてあり、 
大きな荷物を持った外国人が入れ代わり立ち代わり入っていくので外国人が宿泊する場所として近所でも有名だった。 
短い人で数日、長い人で１年くらい住んでいたようで、ベランダで大声で電話したり、 
夏には屋上で騒いだりしていたので近所から注意されることもしばしばあった。 
違法な営業だったとは知らなかったので驚いている」と話していました。 
東京・足立区の住宅で外国人観光客向けの旅館を無許可で営業したとして、 
イギリス人の男が旅館業法違反の疑いで警視庁に逮捕されました。 
調べに対し、「日本では将来、オリンピックもあり、外国人に低料金の宿泊施設を提供したかった」と供述しているということです。

 

 

 

[nzakhariParticipant]

Too bad you had this experience, I’m very surprised to hear this. I know Tokyoplaces, my two kids (in their 20’s) stayed there, one of them for several months, and they loved it. I felt lucky that they found this place. Not only is it clean, welcoming, secure, and affordable but the owner Chris is a great guy who I’ve gotten to know over Skype. He is quite friendly, very supportive and has a beautiful family who lived in the same house.

I would not hesitate to recommend this place to anyone. Both my children feel the same, they had their own rooms with good beds, shared TVs, fridges, stove, AC, coffee maker, in room fans and more, even a gaming computer and gaming systems, everything to make their stay good.

We never had any problems with Chris and found him fun and fair.

Anyway, no regrets with Tokyoplaces from us!!

[michelleKeymaster]

As he was arrested for running the hotel business with out the proper license seams not be a reason enough to start running legal business, renting his place might leave you with out the money and accommodation with out the warning. You have every right to ask him about the legal license before booking the room
http://www.letsbookhotel.com/en/japan/tokyo/hotel/tokyo-places.aspx

http://www.a-hotel.com/japan/tokyo/411858-tokyo-places/

http://www.hotels.ru/eng/hotels/japan/tokyo/tokyo_places.htm

http://www.ixigo.com/tokyo-places-hotel-tokyo-japan-hid-602307?referrer=tp

http://www.hotelscombined.in/Hotel/Tokyo_Places.htm

http://pt.hoteis.com/de1726875/hoteis-proximos-a-tokyo-gotanno-station-toquio-japao/

http://tokyohotels.bookonline2save.com/tokyo-places-jp_japan.htm

 

(2014/08/11)

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