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coolgunguy
Senior MemberPosts: 6,611 Senior Member
The girl child is bumming...
coolgunguy
Senior MemberPosts: 6,611 Senior Member
Consider this a scam alert.
Home from college, she worked the summer up in the Dells. Her thought was to take a semester off and work, saving money in order to avoid (as much as possible) borrowing toward schooling.
She also figured to get an apartment off campus and commute, so as not to finance living arrangements. I wasn't crazy about her taking the semester off, but the idea had merit.
She found a place not far from O'Hare on some rental website for what I felt was a 'too good to be true' price... because it was. The guy leasing the house gave the story that work had taken him away from the area and he hadn't had much luck selling, so he priced it to rent quickly. Lease agreement looked as good as could be expected, with a clause allowing the renter to break the agreement with 60 days notice.
Well, Ryan Sullivan of Austin TX (if that is who and where he really is) wanted her to wire money through Wal-Mart which got Mrs. CGG's interest. She googled 'Wal-Mart scams' or some such and one of the things that popped up was 'rent scam'
Turns out the dude isn't renting the house. He doesn't own the house. Basically, he snapped a pic of the place and listed it as his own.
No money was lost, but she is pretty blue.
Home from college, she worked the summer up in the Dells. Her thought was to take a semester off and work, saving money in order to avoid (as much as possible) borrowing toward schooling.
She also figured to get an apartment off campus and commute, so as not to finance living arrangements. I wasn't crazy about her taking the semester off, but the idea had merit.
She found a place not far from O'Hare on some rental website for what I felt was a 'too good to be true' price... because it was. The guy leasing the house gave the story that work had taken him away from the area and he hadn't had much luck selling, so he priced it to rent quickly. Lease agreement looked as good as could be expected, with a clause allowing the renter to break the agreement with 60 days notice.
Well, Ryan Sullivan of Austin TX (if that is who and where he really is) wanted her to wire money through Wal-Mart which got Mrs. CGG's interest. She googled 'Wal-Mart scams' or some such and one of the things that popped up was 'rent scam'
Turns out the dude isn't renting the house. He doesn't own the house. Basically, he snapped a pic of the place and listed it as his own.
No money was lost, but she is pretty blue.
"Bipartisan" usually means that a bigger than normal deception is happening.
George Carlin
George Carlin
Replies
IMHO Realtors are just above lawyers in the honesty and forth coming dept, but like lawyers, sometimes you have to stick your arm in the hornets nest and take the pain.
Technically, not sight unseen. She and her roommate went down to look at it, but the dude's Secretary "couldn't make it there" to open the place up. Kids walked around the outside, looked in windows, etc. Checked out the neighborhood too.
I didn't know this at the time. My understanding was they had met the secretary and gone through the house. She didn't say that directly, she just didn't divulge that bit of info. She didn't think it was necessary...:roll:
She learned an important lesson that cost her no more than a bus ticket and some shoe leather. I guess I can't be too hard on her. Wanting something to be true isn't quite the same as making sure it is.
George Carlin
And after getting ripped off to the tune of at least $30k by the realtor gunch who listed our townhouse the last time we moved, I'll trust an attorney all week and twice on Sunday before I trust another realtor.
(didn't realize what had happened until a couple months afterwards, starting thinking and putting 2+2 together, had absolutely no evidence...)
NRA Endowment Member
How did that happen? I'm asking as a guy who would like to avoid such things in the future.
George Carlin
Most real estate agents and brokers are honest. They are required to abide by a strict set of ethical standards. Unfortunately you got one of the bad ones. I was in the RE biz for two years, and here in Florida the requirements to get in the business are fairly high, but it's not a perfect system.
We hired the agent because she had done business in our neighborhood and had name recognition. Since I had done it before, I had already run the comps and had an idea of where to price it.
She disagreed and suggested we price it lower, and ultimately we agreed because the market was still a bit uncertain. Lo and behold, a buyer suddenly appeared the day after we listed, who just 'happened' to come thru the agent. She reluctantly gave up a point off her commission, since she now had both sides.
At closing, we learned that the buyer worked for the closing attorney, which at the time didn't bother me. Later we learned from neighbors that came over to see our new place, that the girl who bought our townhouse slapped up fresh paint and flipped it back on the market, with the same agent, at the price I originally wanted to go with.
So my theory is that the agent had this girl on the hook from the very beginning, and manipulated the deal to get two quick sales back to back, at our expense. And I have no evidence at all to prove it, other than my own experience as an investigator, with a particular set of skills.
But if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and craps like a duck........
NRA Endowment Member
There's another one regarding vacation hotel and beach house rentals that are booked online. People are taking pictures of the places, inside and out, and putting them on line with too good to be true prices. They mimic the online places like Trevago, and you send them the money. Then you show up for your too good to be true vacation rental and are left with no place to stay.
― Douglas Adams
Jerry
I agree, but I don't believe for one second that this massengill container is a real estate agent. Still, the thought of kneecapping him makes me smile:devil:
George Carlin
Right. never were a real estate agent. A scammer at work.
Yeah, I agree. The mortgage industry has a lot of crooks in it. My wife took a job as a mortgage agent back in the late 90's and realized the broker had shoddy ways of doing business by accepting clients with very poor credit scores. She quit after a few weeks, and found out later that the husband/wife team that owned the brokerage were indicted for fraud and went to jail. In the run-up to the 2006-2007 RE market crash, there were again lots of mortgage brokers pulling scams to make money as well.