A high-flying property investment manager has escaped jail today after facing court on fraud charges.
Zaki Ameer’s lavish lifestyle and self-proclaimed success was part of what lured people into his business – Dream Design Property (DDP).
Ameer claimed he went from being broke to owning 15 properties in the span of three years and professed to helping hundreds of others build their property empires.
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You probably saw him speaking as a property expert on your TV, on the front cover of newspapers or posing on red carpets.
A Current Affair first met Ameer outside court in 2019, where he was assisting police in an unrelated matter.
Back then, he proudly told us outside court that DDP had helped 1200 clients purchase property.
It was a different tale to what several of Ameer’s customers told us, who claimed they were in thousands of dollars in debt after Ameer failed to give them their money back.
Former DDP sales manager Brendan James alleged Ameer wasn’t honouring a money back guarantee to clients who paid an up-front fee of around $15,000 per property.
“There were many cases where people simply could not get finance and no matter which way they go about it, they weren’t refunded their money,” James claimed.
But it appears Ameer’s lies caught up with him, when the self-made property spruiker was accused of fraud by NSW Fair Trading.
It stems back to his property dealings, when he told another court he’d paid back a disgruntled client, when he hadn’t.
Today in court, he pleaded guilty to deceiving a client.
It could’ve landed him with a two-year prison sentence, but Ameer got lucky and was slapped with a $1500 fine and a 10 month community corrections order.
When approached for comment outside court, Ameer indicated he would be appealing.