Nielle and Sho's Fraud Recovery
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Hi everyone,
My name is Sho and my fiance, Danielle, and I recently became victims of home rental fraud/scam and wanted to share our story in hopes to raise awareness and prevent others from being victims. We went through a nightmare we will never forget and never want anyone else to experience it.
As a newly engaged couple, we were ready to move out and live together on our own and begin our lives together. After searching through multiple home/apartment ads on several legit websites, we found a place in Burligame that fit within our budget and had the amenities that we were looking for. Shortly after we applied, we received an email from "Elizabeth Gordon, owner of the property," and wanted to discuss further in renting the property. Our conversations were mostly through email and text messages but never on the phone or in-person as she was always "busy" or didn't have good phone service.
Elizabeth claimed that she was the owner of the property and moved out to Kansas for her new job. She wanted to find responsible tenants to take care of her house while she was away. As first-time renters, we thought this would be the perfect place for us.
After filling out basic information, she wanted to run a background/credit check and this was the first payment we sent to her. She preferred that the payment was through Apple Pay. Before paying, we asked a couple of friends who were renters if this was normal and they agreed it was.
After days of negotiating and speaking to (so what we thought) our landlord, lawyer, and realtor we thought we sealed a deal on our townhouse in Burlingame and signed our leases online. They said that they were going to mail out the keys and our lease agreement through mail.
During our negotiation, they kept lowering the price of rent and making a deal with us if we paid upfront. Before signing the lease, we've visited the property twice and was able to look outside but couldn't go inside the building because the realtor was on vacation. Eventually, they made us an offer that we couldn't resist and we signed the lease and paid for the upfront lump sum of money (First and last monthly deposit, pet deposit, and 6 months of rent because we were first-time renters.) All of our payments were through third-party apps like Apple Pay, Venmo, and Cash app.
We went to the property for the third time to go introduce ourselves to the new neighbors and come to find out we found a whole family already living there. We were shocked, surprised, confused, and was curious to see what was going. Turns out that we were scammed by a fake person, who hijacked a legitimate phone number in Burlingame, CA, where our property was and impersonated to be our new landlord.
The family who moved into our home went through a real realtor and signed the lease on the same day we did (tough luck) so we were totally fooled when we saw the ad removed. The family that moved in almost got scammed as well because they received emails who claimed to be the owner/realtor. We're embarrassed, upset, and saddened because the house was everything that we hoped for in our new home together.
During this pandemic, Nielle has been out of work for months and was only able to go back to work for one month until salons were shut down again. My work was also affected by COVID as my hours were cut by half. Overall, no matter the circumstances during this pandemic, we were still financially stabled as we saved and had our emergency funds.
We trusted too much and we gave the benefit of the doubt. We now have the police involved but unfortunately, our banks have already told us upfront that we will not be getting any of our money back because we paid through third-party apps like Venmo, Apple Pay, and Cash app which are considered as cash and doesn't protect consumers like they debit cards, credit cards, or checks. We want you guys to be aware of home rental scam fraud and that during this time is when the devil works really hard. We hope our story brings awareness to people. Although we hit a small hiccup in our journey as an engaged couple, we know that we have supportive friends and family that always remind us how lucky we are.
Some takeaways from this tragic event:
- If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
- Never pay through P2P apps like Venmo, Apple Pay, Cash app
- Meet the realtor or manager in-person and take a tour together
- Physically get the keys in person after you sign the lease
- Have an emergency fund of 3-6 months (personal insurance)
Please share this story as it may help others and thank you for your support.
-Sho & Danielle
My name is Sho and my fiance, Danielle, and I recently became victims of home rental fraud/scam and wanted to share our story in hopes to raise awareness and prevent others from being victims. We went through a nightmare we will never forget and never want anyone else to experience it.
As a newly engaged couple, we were ready to move out and live together on our own and begin our lives together. After searching through multiple home/apartment ads on several legit websites, we found a place in Burligame that fit within our budget and had the amenities that we were looking for. Shortly after we applied, we received an email from "Elizabeth Gordon, owner of the property," and wanted to discuss further in renting the property. Our conversations were mostly through email and text messages but never on the phone or in-person as she was always "busy" or didn't have good phone service.
Elizabeth claimed that she was the owner of the property and moved out to Kansas for her new job. She wanted to find responsible tenants to take care of her house while she was away. As first-time renters, we thought this would be the perfect place for us.
After filling out basic information, she wanted to run a background/credit check and this was the first payment we sent to her. She preferred that the payment was through Apple Pay. Before paying, we asked a couple of friends who were renters if this was normal and they agreed it was.
After days of negotiating and speaking to (so what we thought) our landlord, lawyer, and realtor we thought we sealed a deal on our townhouse in Burlingame and signed our leases online. They said that they were going to mail out the keys and our lease agreement through mail.
During our negotiation, they kept lowering the price of rent and making a deal with us if we paid upfront. Before signing the lease, we've visited the property twice and was able to look outside but couldn't go inside the building because the realtor was on vacation. Eventually, they made us an offer that we couldn't resist and we signed the lease and paid for the upfront lump sum of money (First and last monthly deposit, pet deposit, and 6 months of rent because we were first-time renters.) All of our payments were through third-party apps like Apple Pay, Venmo, and Cash app.
We went to the property for the third time to go introduce ourselves to the new neighbors and come to find out we found a whole family already living there. We were shocked, surprised, confused, and was curious to see what was going. Turns out that we were scammed by a fake person, who hijacked a legitimate phone number in Burlingame, CA, where our property was and impersonated to be our new landlord.
The family who moved into our home went through a real realtor and signed the lease on the same day we did (tough luck) so we were totally fooled when we saw the ad removed. The family that moved in almost got scammed as well because they received emails who claimed to be the owner/realtor. We're embarrassed, upset, and saddened because the house was everything that we hoped for in our new home together.
During this pandemic, Nielle has been out of work for months and was only able to go back to work for one month until salons were shut down again. My work was also affected by COVID as my hours were cut by half. Overall, no matter the circumstances during this pandemic, we were still financially stabled as we saved and had our emergency funds.
We trusted too much and we gave the benefit of the doubt. We now have the police involved but unfortunately, our banks have already told us upfront that we will not be getting any of our money back because we paid through third-party apps like Venmo, Apple Pay, and Cash app which are considered as cash and doesn't protect consumers like they debit cards, credit cards, or checks. We want you guys to be aware of home rental scam fraud and that during this time is when the devil works really hard. We hope our story brings awareness to people. Although we hit a small hiccup in our journey as an engaged couple, we know that we have supportive friends and family that always remind us how lucky we are.
Some takeaways from this tragic event:
- If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
- Never pay through P2P apps like Venmo, Apple Pay, Cash app
- Meet the realtor or manager in-person and take a tour together
- Physically get the keys in person after you sign the lease
- Have an emergency fund of 3-6 months (personal insurance)
Please share this story as it may help others and thank you for your support.
-Sho & Danielle
Organizer
Sho Sato
Organizer
San Mateo, CA