Landlord Scam Files

Landlord Scam Files

 

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The Landlord Scam:
Documented Timeline of Legal Proceedings and Events

After arriving in Taiwan as a teenager and spending most of my adult life there, I built a school, printed T-shirts that proudly read “Taiwan is not part of China,” and nearly relinquished my Canadian passport to make Taiwan my permanent home. I invested everything — my time, my savings, my heart — into the place and its people.

What followed was the collapse of that life after a rental dispute escalated into years of overlapping legal actions, extensive legal mail, and consequences far beyond what any reasonable person would expect from the underlying facts. The result was business destruction, prolonged stress, and separation from the child I helped raise — and ultimately, departure from Taiwan to avoid imprisonment, from the country I still consider home.

This page is a public archive: a dated, document-based record for journalists, legal observers, human rights advocates, and anyone who wants to review the paper trail directly. Where interpretation is offered, it is framed as opinion based on the documents and proceedings described below.

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2020

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2025

Miscellaneous / Undated

Key Evidence — Start Here

Audio Recordings — Taiwan Landlord Scam Case

Ross Cline animated icon Each entry below includes a short context note, a playable audio file, and a direct download link for archiving and transparency.

I’m publishing this material because I still care deeply about Taiwan and because I believe the documentary record matters — especially when formal channels have produced little acknowledgement or correction.

One moment that captures the tone of this experience: during a High Court visit, clerks required me — a foreigner with limited written Chinese — to complete handwritten text that I could not reasonably verify for accuracy. Whether this was indifference or something worse, it was degrading. Incidents like that are difficult to convey without recordings and documents.

What is shared here is only a portion of the record. Additional documentation may be published as the record develops, in the same documentary format.

Taiwan Taichung District Court — August 14, 2023

This recording documents a hearing at the Taichung District Court on August 14, 2023.

The session repeatedly returns to one question: “Why did you post the rental contract, Mr. Cline?” The focus remained fixed on the posting itself, rather than the context surrounding it — including the alleged contract breach that prompted the posting and the safety concerns I raised at the time.

In the recording, I explain that a key term of the contract (including the rolling metal gate / security situation) was not being addressed, and that I posted the contract to document the dispute after mediation attempts were unsuccessful. I also reference a threatening call attributed to the landlord’s husband, and how that threat was treated as peripheral rather than central to my safety and state of mind.

To my ear, this hearing captures a recurring pattern: narrow procedural framing, limited engagement with context, and an apparent unwillingness to weigh competing evidence in a way that a foreign defendant could meaningfully understand and respond to.

This audio may sound repetitive, but it reflects how the same issue was revisited across years — and how context was repeatedly minimized.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

Conversation with Lawyer — September 28, 2023

This recording captures a long conversation between me and a Taiwanese lawyer on September 28, 2023.

I contacted this lawyer hoping to hire private counsel to review the record independently. In the conversation, he explains practical and professional constraints around taking a case that had already involved Legal Aid, and he recommends pursuing a different Legal Aid lawyer rather than switching to private representation.

For me, this call illustrates a structural problem I encountered repeatedly: even when I was prepared to pay for outside review, the pathway to meaningful independent legal assistance felt limited and uncertain.

Listening back, it’s clear I was exhausted but still asking the same basic thing: for someone to look at the documentary record carefully, including procedural issues and apparent inconsistencies.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

Me Suing Bella — November 14, 2023

This recording captures a court appearance connected to my attempt to pursue a fraud-related complaint against my former landlord (referred to here as “Bella”).

At that stage, I was unrepresented and navigating procedural requirements without meaningful language support. My aim was straightforward: to ask the court to examine the underlying dispute, including the circumstances that led to the contract being posted and the alleged threats that were reported.

In the recording, you can hear the process shift toward forms, technical requirements, and procedural thresholds rather than an evaluation of the core issues. For me, this was one of the moments where it became difficult to believe the system was designed to provide an effective remedy to a foreign complainant on equal footing.

This is not a “dramatic” recording — but it is part of the paper-and-audio trail that shows how the dispute expanded over time while meaningful resolution remained out of reach.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

Call from Immigration in Taiwan — November 23, 2023

This recording captures a call from Taiwan’s immigration office on November 23, 2023.

When immigration contacts a foreign resident, it carries obvious pressure. In this call, my concern is clear: I had lived in Taiwan for many years, registered properly, and operated a legitimate business. Yet the tone and substance of the call reinforced the feeling that I was being treated as a case file rather than a person facing escalating legal jeopardy.

In context, this recording matters because immigration contact and criminal proceedings can intersect in ways that heighten vulnerability for non-citizens — especially when language barriers and procedural complexity are already present.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

March 27, 2024 — Court Date (Settlement Discussion)

This recording (about 17 minutes) documents a hearing in which the court again raised settlement.

There were translators present and the tone is procedurally polite. However, the substance highlights a recurring problem: settlement is not a meaningful option when one party’s position is not a compromise but an all-or-nothing demand.

This clip is useful as a simple illustration of how the process repeatedly returned to settlement prompts without resolving the underlying impasse.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

April 8, 2024 — Court Call and Negotiation Question

This recording captures a call from a court clerk on April 8, 2024, relaying the judge’s repeated request that I “negotiate” with the landlord.

In the call, I explain that negotiation had repeatedly failed and that the landlord’s demands were not realistically payable. The call also illustrates a procedural confusion I experienced often: multiple hearing dates were scheduled close together, yet the explanation for what each hearing was for was unclear to me.

This matters because when a defendant cannot reliably understand scheduling, purpose, or procedural posture — especially across a language barrier — meaningful participation becomes extremely difficult.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

Court Voicemail — April 17, 2024

This short recording (just over two minutes) is a voicemail from the Taichung High Court on April 17, 2024.

The caller asks whether I am willing to mediate with the other party. In context, the message shows how the system continued to encourage mediation even after prolonged conflict and repeated failures to reach any workable terms.

For readers, this voicemail is a small but telling artifact: polite language and procedural routine overlaying a dispute that had already escalated into severe personal and legal consequences.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

Courthouse Audio — April 17, 2024

This recording (about 1 hour and 55 minutes) captures a long hearing day in court.

A significant portion returns to the same core framing: the posting of the contract, rather than the reasons for it, the surrounding dispute, or the evidentiary and procedural issues that I repeatedly raised.

I describe the repair attempts that left conditions worse, and I explain why documentation became my only reliable method of communicating factual context in a system where written Chinese dominated the record.

Even where the hearing sounds slow, it remains part of the documentary record of how the case functioned in practice — and why it became impossible for me to believe I was receiving a fair assessment on equal terms.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

May 16, 2024 — Court Date (Context for the Audio Recording)

This recording corresponds to my court appearance on May 16, 2024 — one of multiple proceedings tied to the same underlying allegation.

In the recording and surrounding record, I repeatedly raised procedural concerns: that matters connected to the same brief posting were pursued across separate tracks; that language barriers materially affected my ability to respond; and that exculpatory context was not being weighed in a way that felt coherent or fair.

I also describe how key details — including the identity of the person associated with a threatening call — were documented in Chinese in a way I could not meaningfully verify at the time. This is one of the clearest examples of how language access affects due process in real life, not in theory.

It is also worth noting the presence of a court interpreter who treated the situation with professionalism and kindness. Individuals can act with integrity even when a process as a whole feels broken.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

In Court — June 18, 2024

This recording comes from my court appearance on June 18, 2024.

Again, the process appears to narrow its focus to the posting of the contract rather than a full, contextual evaluation — including witness testimony that I believe was important, and the state of mind in which I acted.

The recording also shows the contrast between individual professionalism (including interpretation support) and a broader pattern of procedural decisions that, in my view, undermined fairness.

For observers, this hearing is not significant because of a single “moment,” but because it mirrors what happened across years: repetition of a narrow allegation, and a persistent minimization of contextual evidence.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

Call with Mr. Huang — October 22, 2024

This recording relates to my call with Mr. Huang after I received a Supreme Court-related notice that, as delivered, raised basic questions about formality and secure communication.

In the call and its surrounding context, the key issue is not paperwork alone — it is the larger concern that the process had become rigid, formalistic, and disconnected from the real-world consequences for a foreign defendant.

I include this recording because it reflects what I encountered repeatedly: communication that assumes fluency, assumes legal literacy, and assumes equal access to remedies — assumptions that do not match the lived experience of many foreigners navigating Taiwan’s legal system.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

February 19, 2025 — Immigration Call

This recording was made on the evening of February 19, 2025, while I was in New Brunswick, Canada, when I received an unexpected call from Taiwan’s immigration office.

In the call, the officer discusses options associated with community labor versus incarceration. I explain why those options did not feel like meaningful alternatives given my position: the underlying dispute, the procedural history, and the serious consequences already imposed.

This matters because it shows how immigration contact can follow a defendant across borders — and how the system’s expectations can remain unchanged even when new official correspondence later acknowledges mitigating facts.

It is one more piece of the record illustrating why I believe the outcome in this case is disproportionate to the underlying conduct — and why I am asking for independent review and rectification.

📥 Download Audio (.m4a)

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