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Vacation Rental Pro
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 9/5/2010 7:59 AM
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PROVINCETOWN - The Craig’s List vacation scam, which has hit visitors here and in Truro, has apparently spread to West Dennis and law enforcement officials say they are helpless to investigate the fraud that has cost families thousands of dollars.
After reading a previous story in the Banner, two separate families contacted the paper to say they were bilked by a man calling himself alternately Michael Rynne and Michael Reese, who said he was the owner of 7-A Ocean Avenue in West Dennis. After paying a 50 percent deposit on the $2,200 weekly rent, both families found out about the scam when Rynne/Reese tried to push back their arrival dates, claiming the house needed repairs. After investigating, they found out the house didn’t exist.
“My vacation is ruined. I have a friend who flew in from Georgia and I am suddenly left with no vacation plans. We were also going to use this house to celebrate my friend’s 35th birthday, which, of course, we had to cancel. This man is a monster,” said Allison Rude.
“We, like the other people, are a party of nine coming in from many different areas, ages 7 to 76. After contacting the Martha Murray Real Estate Agency [in Dennis], who have been extremely helpful with this, they were actually able to find us a place that would accommodate all of us in Dennisport for the same week, however, for more money than the $2,200 we were paying for the fictitious house at 7-A Ocean Ave.,” said Meg Anderson, another tourist who was bilked.
The fraud method used on the two women mirrors exactly a similar fraud carried out by a “Michael Reese” and a “Michael Rath,” who advertised a home at 19 Crestview Circle in North Truro for rent. Two separate groups planning family reunions also lost their deposit and had to scramble to find other, more expensive housing for their vacations. And in Provincetown, a woman found out an apartment she had paid a $300 deposit on was not owned by the person claiming to be the landlord. That incident may not be related to the others.
The problem in tracking down the Internet thief is that local law enforcement officials are uncertain whether they have jurisdiction and the larger state and federal agencies focus their investigations on larger frauds. Capt. William Monahan of the Dennis Police Dept. said that even though the Ocean Avenue house advertised was supposedly in West Dennis, there was no evidence “Michael Reese” actually lives in town.
“There lies the problem of whose jurisdiction it is. It’s very murky. We refer them to agencies that have countywide or statewide jurisdiction. It may even be federal,” Monahan said.
But a check-in with those agencies shows a similar reluctance to investigate. Jill Butterworth, deputy press secretary for the state Attorney General’s office, said that while the AG’s office has a cyber crime division, it concentrates on child pornography, online gambling, stalking and hate crimes. Simple fraud doesn’t qualify as an area the division normally handles, she said.
“I can’t say for sure we never would [investigate]. It depends on the level it reached. This office has limited resources. It depends on the resources and what we can investigate,” Butterworth said, adding that victims can file a complaint with her office by calling (617) 727-8400 or at the agency’s website, www.mass.gov/ago.
Meanwhile, at the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz said that the relatively small amounts of money lost in the vacation house scam “isn’t enough to open a federal investigation.” The FBI refers victims to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) website, www.ic3.gov. Established as a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, IC3 bundles together claims that appear to be related and turns them over the appropriate law enforcement agencies if a large enough pattern emerges. However, Marcinkiewicz said that agencies can’t possibly investigate all the claims.
“There’s just too much of it going on,” she said.
The only advice the AG’s office and FBI offer is for consumers to be very careful when purchasing something over the Internet, particularly when renting a vacation property. Calling a town assessor’s office to ascertain the true owner of a property before any money is exchanged is a first step.
Another action step, according to Andrew Murray, a rental agent at Coldwell Banker Martha Murray Real Estate in Dennis, is to make a fuss. His agency has two properties the fictitious “Michael Reese” has illegally rented to unsuspecting vacationers. Last week, his agency had three check-ins at the same West Dennis property for the same week, only one of which was real.
Murray said he has dealt with the scam over the past year but has received the same response from law enforcement agencies when he tried to alert them. However, he said Michael Reese returned $900 of a $1,100 deposit to one victim when they threatened to call an attorney.
“Get all over this guy and maybe he’ll send you some money back,” Murray said, adding, “Unfortunately, it’s about the easiest scam you can do. They say it’s like chasing a ghost.”
connecting the vacation rental communitywww.vacaconnect.com
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