ARY Laguna: scam continues to unravel
ARY will not go down alone. It will take down the reputation of DHA and UBL with it.
The thing about scams is that they are elaborate and elegant till the moment they start to unravel. ARY Laguna has been unravelling from day one.
Announcing that it will establish the largest real estate agency with 25 offices nationwide.
Making the membership form available online, thus allowing the investors to bypass Platinum Agents.
Bringing complexity to the process, i.e. asking buyers to verify the forms that they purchased from ARY's Platinum Agents.
Changing the announced payment structure. The new payment structure requires 33% of payment of apartment in year 1.
Entire marketing effort focused on selling the forms and not the apartments.
There were a few more, but you get the idea. Now we can add one more to the list.
Multiple rounds of balloting: Why is this a mistake? ARY is treating it like a lottery without it being a lottery. The way a lottery works is if no one wins the pool in this week or month's round, the pool size increases as more buyers of lottery ticket come in. If there is no winner in the next round, then more people start buying the ticket as the pool is attaining a newsworthy size. However, there is no such thing here. As per ARY's own communication, the last date of form submission was six months ago, i.e. November 26, 2020. The outcome of the lottery i.e., number of apartments remain the same if it is one round or two rounds or multiple rounds. Moreover, theoretically there are no more tickets i.e., forms to sell either as the last date of form submission was November 26, 2020. This may be another failed attempt by ARY to generate interest in the project and to keep it in the news cycle, as having multiple rounds will allow ARY to announce each ballot round as breaking news on ARY News on a regular basis. Or it could be to delay the inevitable. Most of the buyers of the forms are investors who bought the forms to sell at a premium. I don’t think many are interested in buying the units. If ARY allots all the apartments, it might turn out that all the buyers rush for the exit trying to sell the forms or their booking and the whole scheme comes crashing down like a house of cards. Multiple rounds of balloting allows ARY to keep the scam running a bit longer.
With this, I bring my analysis of the project in this post to the end. Now I let the investors speak for the project. From ARY Laguna’s Facebook page.
Ballot results
The ballot result web form does not validate whether the length of data entered into the ballot form is equal to the length of NICOP number. It even allows gibberish to be entered and states that your form has automatically been moved to next ballot. See below where I entered “ARY Laguna is a scam” in the search box. It asks me to wait for the next ballot.
From the Facebook page.
Giving the runaround
Realizing that he has made a mistake, and it is better to cut the losses, an applicant by asks for a refund. ARY asks them to email. When email is sent to that address, the reply received is to send the email to a different address. When the email is sent to the different address, the applicant is asked to wait for the next ballot or reach out to the first email address.
The unlucky winners
The real unlucky ones are those whose name came up in the ballot. They received a rude surprise. ARY increased the price citing construction costs, Laguna view premium or a floor premium.
Royal treatment
Is this how you treat the winning member?
No legally binding communication from ARY
Platinum agents are pushing the unlucky ones to deposit the down payment.
Even if you get the letter, the letter does not guarantee you anything. The time, phase, and category/type of allocation of the unit will be at the discretion of the Developer.
Platinum agents screwing or getting rewarded with ballots
Not only Platinum Agents are pushing their clients to buy the units without knowing the type and location of the unit, they are also asking for additional 1% premium from their clients.
I really hope he releases the chat transcript.
If you are wondering why Platinum Agents are acting in this manner, it is because their incentive structure is based on getting their clients to shell out the maximum money. From my previous post on ARY
Each form has the name of PA mentioned on it. If the buyer of the form ends up buying an apartment or a plot, the developer gives a kickback from 2%- 5% of the plot/apartment price to the PA.
Developer sells plots/apartments to PA for a discount. In the case of Bahria Town Karachi, the majority of the real estate brokers have bought plots from Bahria. When you buy a plot through an agent, it is technically being sold to you from PA's inventory. PA is making money for the difference between market rate and discount rate.
The developer also sells already pre-approved booking forms to PAs. Reportedly these are apartments that have been taken out of the balloting pool as "PA’s quota". The buyers of these pre-approved forms are guaranteed to receive apartments/plots when 'balloting' is held. Such forms are usually allocated to PAs based on the number of forms they sell providing additional motivation to PAs to sell the maximum number of forms. It is PA's discretion on how he wants to use these forms: sell these at a premium as they are guaranteed to win an apartment or sell them to their most lucrative clients i.e. those that buy the maximum number of forms.
High risk yields high award
Without comment.
Has the definition of gambling changed?
I can understand people in Middle East falling for such schemes as they don't have avenues to buy property locally. I don't understand why those living the dream in Canada or UK would invest in such schemes.
ARY seeking refuge behind DHA and UBL
It appears that ARY will not go down alone. It will take the down the reputation of DHA and UBL along with it.
This last one from twitter