Woman rents BMW and goes missing, rental company makes online plea: 'Return our car and stop hiding'
A car rental company has turned to social media after a client allegedly went missing with one of its BMWs.
Kem Auto Leasing and Car Rental in Ubi Road 1 made a Facebook post on March 6 after the client, Anne Cecilia, failed to return the vehicle she had rented on Jan 27.
According to the post, she had said she would meet the company's staff at Singapore General Hospital at 7pm that day to return the car, but never showed up.
Stomp understands that Ms Anne, who lives in Sengkang, was already more than a week late in both payment and returning the car.
She had given several reasons for the delay, including that her parents were in hospital, that one of them had to undergo surgery, and that a friend had not transferred money to her.
Ms Anne had been a customer of the company for two years without issue and had been trusted with a BMW 318i that was not fitted with a tracker.
According to the company, she even mentioned that a friend owed another rental company "$4,000 to $5,000" but had not faced any problems, and appeared to hope for similar treatment.
Kem Auto said it made several attempts to contact Ms Anne to return the car. The final straw came when a staff member waited in vain to meet her on March 6.
"Anne, if you see this post, please return our car and stop hiding," the company wrote on its post.
It added that it did not want to go to her home in case it disturbed her parents, and instead decided to reach out through social media, noting that Ms Anne had more than 1,000 friends on Facebook.
However, Ms Anne's Facebook account now appears to have been deleted or deactivated.
The post has since received more than 220 reactions and 115 comments, many urging the company to make a police report.
'Changed the meeting and never turned up'
The boss of Kem Auto Leasing and Car Rental, Sean Kwan, 43, told Stomp early on March 10 that Ms Anne contacted the company after the post was published and said she would return the car on March 9 at 3pm.
"She told my staff she still needed the car to drive her father from the hospital and told us again she would be returning the car and settle the rental fees owed at 3pm Monday (March 9)," said Mr Kwan.
However, the meeting was postponed again.
"Then delay — changed the meeting to 6pm, then to 7pm and never turned up or replied," he said.
Mr Kwan said he is aware of comments telling him to make a police report, but believes there is little the authorities can do as the matter is considered a breach of contract rather than car theft.
"It's a civil case, not a criminal offence," he explained, adding that the company may have to hire a lawyer to recover the money owed or bring the matter to the Small Claims Tribunals.
Mr Kwan said that in the company's 11 years of operation, it has encountered similar cases before, but never with a long-time "trusted" customer.
"We will always have such bad hirers, but I never expected a regular hirer to have such a bad attitude and behaviour," he said. "I never expected her to change so suddenly."
In previous cases, he said defaulters at least made partial payments before disappearing.
"We even engaged debt collectors, but there's not much use," he added.
Some netizens felt his efforts might be futile.
"Your car maybe in Thailand already, or spread all over Malaysia as spare parts," said one commenter.
Others suggested he post the car's licence plate number so people could keep a lookout for it.
Mr Kwan said he was considering other options. According to the company's records, Ms Anne had made payment only up to Feb 26.
"I will try to go to her home in the middle of the night to see if I can find the car," he said.
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