Operation: Keep Larry in his Home.

Meet Larry. Larry is a gentle, pure, and kind-hearted 76-year-old man. He spent his life and earned his living by running the concrete company he owned for almost 35 years. Larry has lived in his home since 1989 and never planned to move. The photo above was a picture I took after I ran to the ATM for cash to make a purchase at the moving sale he held to sell all of his belongings. I saw it as a good representation of the hard work and independence he has carried throughout his life. But you're probably wondering where I fit into this story, so allow me to explain...

Hi, my name is Cody Rankin, a Licensed Realtor with Keller Williams Chervenic Realty. I received a phone call in my office on July 21st, 2022. This was when I spoke with Larry for the first time, and he explained that he was looking for an agent to help him sell his home due to him being involved in a scam. We set up a time for me to stop in at his home to talk with him about the selling process. When I arrived, we walked the property, and I asked him more about his situation. That's when I started to understand the severity of his heartbreaking situation that took place for over the past year.

At some point in 2021, Larry had received a phone call from a man who claimed to be with "National Awards and Promotions" in Las Vegas. They told him that large companies like Walmart, AARP, Visa, Walgreens, etc... donate to them annually for a tax write-off that they will then give away as prizes. Larry is a man of a different generation and doesn't use the internet, and when I asked if he had an email, he said, "Oh yes, I have an email... But I don't know how to open it.". They told him they had been trying to reach him for two years about his winnings and that he had won their annual giveaway of around $900,000 back in 2019. He mentioned that he thought it was too good to be true and didn't do anything about it at first. Then he said they were constantly calling him back and telling him more about it to make it more believable, and he eventually bought into it and sent a check around $5000 to claim his price. The phone calls happened nearly every morning, and they were not the phone calls I had expected to hear about; these were phone calls Larry says were always about 10-15 minutes long, asking about his day, how the weather was in Ohio, telling him they were working on getting him his winnings, etc... These were just conversations to build trust and rapport with Larry so that he’d start to believe everything they told him.

Eventually, the second of the scammers came into the equation, as the bank that "National Awards and Promotions" works with. He told Larry that his winnings from 2019 had been earning interest and his prize increased to around $1,400,000. They kept pushing off "sending his prize" because every time something with his prize would change, they had to redo legal paperwork to allow him to receive the winnings. Over time they would request more and more money from Larry to file the changes so that he could collect his prize. All while saying things to him like "Larry, were going to make you a rich man!" and reassuring him with "Larry, we understand you're upset because you haven't received your prize, but we are doing everything we can. We are here to help you get your money.".

Then came along the third of the scammers. This one supposedly worked for a legal team that worked alongside "National Awards and Promotions" and their bank. This guy told Larry he was there to get him his money and that they had also entered a lawsuit with the companies who would pay them annually for the giveaways due to not receiving their funds. He told Larry that they had won the lawsuit and were being paid out a total of $50,000,000, and Larry would receive $16,000,000 of it. The only catch was that he'd have to send them a check for $156,000 to claim his payout. By this point, Larry, unfortunately (maybe fortunately) had no money left. Larry told me he wouldn’t have sent the money even if he had it because he was so fed up with waiting for this so-called prize he was supposed to receive over two years prior.

At the end of the day, Larry had been taken for all his savings, two annuities, a line of credit, potentially his home he’s owned for nearly three and a half decades, and most definitely an enjoyment of the last years to come in his life. The dollar amount lost in this period was slightly over a quarter million dollars. Surprisingly enough, Larry can still crack a joke and still show off his smile to anyone he feels deserves to see it. He mentioned to me that if he sold his home for the value he needed, he’d be able to move into a trailer park and budget his money to allow him to live until he’s 80 years old because, in his words, “I don’t think I’ll live that long.”

I sat with him for six hours one day, helping him with his moving sale that I advertised on Facebook so we could generate some traffic and help him get the most money out of his belongings. During those six hours, I got the opportunity to get to know him, learn about his life, and hear about his love for his home. Larry is truly a great man, and I’ve changed my goal from selling his home, to helping him keep it. My position as a Realtor is so much more to me than just a commission check, it gives me the ability to help people make significant changes in their lives, and I want to do everything I can to make a positive change in Larry’s life.

Join me to allow Larry the chance to stay in his home until hopefully they can come to some resolution in their investigation of this scam. The goal will allow him to make ends meet for the next couple of years of his life and allow him to stay in his beloved home in the meantime. Larry has no idea this is being set up for him, so anything helps and anything donated will be GREATLY appreciated!!

Thank you all for your time and share this story so we can keep as many people out of these scams as possible!

Update: I will withdraw funds in my name (Cody Rankin) and give funds in Cash to Larry Ford. With the bank transfer and verification process of GoFundMe, it is more convenient for myself (Cody Rankin) and Larry to withdraw the funds in cash and hand them to Larry in person.