Ski season workers scammed by fake real estate agents

How one fake real estate agent tried to extort US$3000 from me and stole another agent’s identity.

If Google isn’t your first language then it’s easy to take real estate rental advertisements at face value. It’s even easier to be scammed if you find English difficult.

I saw an ad in the Salt Lake Tribune for a two bedroom apartment in the St Regis Deer Valley residences this week. You know the St Regis, the swanky five star, ski in ski out, uber luxe property with both hotel rooms and multi bedroom residences that sell for millions.

The real estate agent who advertised this off the charts property wanted a mere US$2100 per month for a month to month lease over winter.

Alarm bells did go off because we all know that US$2100 per month in the peak of winter in a ski town usually gets you this kind of luxury (see pic below) not ski in ski out butler service.

Then I saw the same agent had also advertised a swanky one bedroom downtown condo on Park Avenue in Park City for US$1500 over winter. This seemed a little more legitimate for a monthly rental for a shoebox.

So I emailed the agent through the Salt Lake Tribune property site about both properties and I received an email in response from an outlook.com email. Bells began to jingle as I figured a real estate agent with a one bedroom on Park Avenue and a two bedroom at the St Regis would at least have a corporate email account.

She informed me that the St Regis Deer Valley property was taken (damn) but the Park Avenue one was available, though she was inundated with enquiries about the property so I should secure it fast. Like now. With money.

Instead I asked to see it. She told me it had a tenant and wasn’t available for viewing, yet, but I could sign a non binding lease agreement to secure the property before the thousands of others who also wanted it. We all know how desperate we get finding ski season accommodation, clearly so does she.

That agreement would mean I could see the property once the current tenants vacated and if I liked it then it was 100% mine for the winter lease.  If I didn’t like it then she would return the US$3000 of two month’s rent that I would pay now to secure the property sight unseen. Right then.

After I mentioned there were no business details on her correspondence, and I wasn’t going to hand over money until I saw them, she next signed her email with a real estate licence number. Lovely Google then informed me that yes, the licence number matched her name.

However she had stolen both name and licence number from a real estate agent in California but her phone number stupidly didn’t match. I know this because I contacted the real one whose identity she stole and the real one doesn’t know anything about these rental properties.

Next thing, the faux real estate agent sent me the lease for the property and bank account details for the money.  She had lifted a logo from an unsuspecting Illinois real estate agency whose name I won’t publish because why should they be hurt by another’s scam the same way the genuine real estate agent shouldn’t have her name in the mud either.

The dummied up lease also gave me the address of the owner of the property and the address of the Park City office for the faux real estate agent I had been dealing with.

So I took a drive to find both. I actually took a bike ride (and a bus) because I don’t have a car yet but that’s just semantics, right?

Low and behold this is what’s at 1625 Redstone Centre Drive, the address given for the owner of the property. A series of empty shops.

And this is what’s at 1910 Prospector Avenue, the address for the fake real estate agent. There’s definitely a number of businesses but no ‘Classic Realty Group’. Though it was good to know where I can go to get my eye lashes done.

So I did some more sleuthing, looked on VRBO and guess what I found. The Park Avenue one bedroom property and it’s booked for various dates throughout the months I was offered for my winter lease.

Well, that’s awkward. I mean what am I going to do when these VRBO bookings arrive on my door and want to sleep in my bed once I have moved in?

I reached out and asked them about the ad in the Salt Lake Tribune and the poor real owner almost had a heart attack.

I have informed The Salt Lake Tribune. Though I am fearful she (if she’s a she, could be a he, who knows what gender outlook.com identifies with) may have already extorted dollars from unsuspecting folk from Latin America intending to arrive for the winter thinking that the Park Avenue apartment is theirs or any of the other two she had advertised.

Google also revealed the other two listed properties under her name are also on the sales market (the St Regis one for seven figures). She clearly just lifted the sales photos and blurb, like she did the VRBO one, and placed them in the online classifieds of the paper.

But she got unlucky this time. You don’t mess with a journalist with a firm grip on Google. Last I looked online extortion was illegal.

You have been warned ski season people. I just hope no one has actually given these scammers any money in the belief they have a condo to live in when they arrive for the winter.

Read more: What do Santa, the Easter bunny and housing in a ski town have in common?