Somewhere out there is a con man who is pirating realtors’ photographs of homes for sale on our barrier island and using them to rip off unsuspecting out-of-towners in a vacation-rental scam that leaves his victims feeling fleeced, frustrated and foolish.
He goes by the name Thomas Bui, which could be an alias, and nobody knows where this con man is located because he communicates only via email.
Somehow, though, he has found us – Sea Oaks, especially – and in recent months has duped at least two would-be renters into sending deposits to his accomplices. One Canadian couple didn’t know they had been swindled until they arrived at the beachside community.
And, based on my conversations, there are almost certainly others who’ve been similarly scammed – but are too embarrassed to report it.
So I’m now rooting hard that someone catches him.
I’m hoping this parasite scams the wrong person – perhaps someone with the relentless determination, thirst for justice and resources necessary to hunt him down and explain to him, in painful detail, the error of his larcenous ways.
That’s probably never going to happen, I know. But even with cases of wire fraud and Internet scams spreading at an epidemic rate, it might be the only remedy available.
The police can’t, or won’t, help.
“Believe me, I tried,” said Donna Skwarzynski, a 71-year-old San Jose, Calif., resident who was taken by Bui in February, when she thought she had booked a two-bedroom, two-bath oceanfront condominium for three weeks in April at the bargain price of $1,400. “Once I suspected that I might’ve been scammed, I began making calls.”
She called two small-town police departments in Minnesota – Bui told her to transfer her money to a woman’s bank account in Fulda, 20 miles from that woman’s home in Lakefield – but neither provided any real assistance. She also filed a formal complaint with the police in San Jose.
“I wasn’t letting go of this thing,” Skwarzynski said. “I’ve put together an inch-thick file. But, apparently, there’s not much the police can do, or are willing to do.
“Even the police departments in larger cities, like San Jose, don’t have the manpower or resources to pursue wire-fraud cases unless there’s a lot of money involved or it’s connected to a homicide,” she added. “I spoke with a friend who works in a different division in the police force there, and he told me, ‘Kiss your money goodbye.’
“So I’ve finally given up.”
Just so you know: Skwarzynski also complained to Craigslist where she found Bui’s ad, which she said has done “absolutely nothing” in response.
She eventually did find another place to rent in Vero Beach. She’s staying in a condo at Ocean Club III through the end of the month and is enjoying visits with her sister, who lives on the mainland.
Yet, probably because she’s a Realtor, the entire episode gnaws at her – not so much because of the $1,400 she lost, but because she didn’t trust her instincts, which she said told her the rental price in the Craigslist ad was “too good to be true” and the process “seemed a little weird.”
Skwarzynski said she wasn’t familiar enough with Vero Beach, and particularly Sea Oaks, to know oceanfront condos there usually rent for far more than $500 per week, especially this time of year.
“I checked a map and it looked a little out of the way, not close to town, and I thought maybe that was why it was such a good deal,” she said. “The ad looked legit.”
So Skwarzynski responded, expressing her interest, which prompted Bui to send her a lease that she filled out, scanned and returned to him. He included his name, a cellphone number and an email address.
After receiving and reviewing the signed lease, Bui sent a follow-up email instructing Skwarzynski to pay in advance by transferring $1,400 to an account belonging to a woman named Patricia Steffen at the First National Bank in Fulda, Minn. He provided both the bank’s routing number and Steffen’s account number.
“I immediately emailed him back and asked: ‘Who is Patricia? I thought you were the owner,’” she said. “He emailed back, saying she owned the condo and he was the agent who managed the property for her. That’s when I started wondering.”
Skwarzynski became suspicious enough to call the Minnesota bank and speak to the manager, who she said verified Steffen’s account – one she had maintained for years. She also conducted an Internet search.
“I thought to myself, ‘OK, at least she exists,’ and it really was a legitimate bank account,” she recalled. “That’s when I transferred the funds from my bank to hers.”
After several days passed without receiving a receipt, Skwarzynski emailed Bui to request one, and he sent it. Still, she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
It was then that she put her Realtor’s background to work and punched in the address of the condo, located on South Sea Oaks Way, on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) website.
“Lo and behold, the listing came up as ‘Just Sold,’” she said. “The real estate agent’s name and number were listed, so I called her and told her of my concerns. She said, ‘Oh, honey, you were scammed. This is probably the 10th call I’ve gotten.’
“Then she told me about the couple from Canada and said it’s happened to a lot of people.”
The local realtor, Fran Smyrk of Treasure Coast Sotheby’s, said at least three of her Sea Oaks listings have been used by scammers, and that there’s little she can do to stop them.
She said she has reported the scam to Michael Thorpe, who co-owns the agency where she works. She also has alerted Pam Dawson, general manager of the Sea Oaks Property Owners’ Association.
“I’ve been doing this for 17 years, and I don’t remember seeing anything like this around here until last year,” Smyrk said. “I’ve heard it’s happening in other communities, too, but mostly at Sea Oaks.
“I don’t know why they’ve gone after my listings – maybe they like my photographs – but I’ve gotten a few calls from people who say they saw one of my properties on Craig’s List and wanted to know if it was for sale or for rent,” she added. “I wish there was some way to find these people, because I hate what they’re doing.”
Dawson said she called the Sheriff’s Office, but there was little more Sea Oaks could do.
“From everything I’ve heard,” she said, “the people who defraud you have the upper hand.”
Just ask Skwarzynski, who said she never actually spoke with Bui, communicating with him only through email.
Her bank couldn’t help her because, by the time she realized what was going on, the funds already had been transferred to Steffen’s bank, which also couldn’t help her.
The police in two Minnesota towns couldn’t help her, other than to say Steffen works in the cafeteria of a local middle school, where her husband is the janitor, though Lakefield Police Chief Andrew Konechne did at least talk to Steffen.
“After I told him I had confirmed the funds had been transferred, he asked her about money transferred into her bank account,” Skwarzynski said. “But she made up some ridiculous story about selling something on eBay and said the money came from that transaction.
“I asked the chief if he would check her computer to see if she really sold anything, but he said privacy laws prevented him from accessing her computer without a warrant,” she added. “I even called and emailed the district attorney in Minnesota and explained the whole scenario.
“And she said the same thing: I’d have to get a warrant from San Jose.”
But the San Jose police, she said, don’t seem to care enough to help her – because nobody was killed and she didn’t lose enough money.
So Skwarzynski took matters into her own hands, concocting a fictitious ad and placing it on Craigslist, where she warned others of Bui’s scam. She knows it won’t bring her money back, but she’s hoping she might prevent someone else from making the same mistake.
“Please read this posting – it may save you thousands of dollars!” she wrote, adding that there were, at the time she placed her ad, 22 postings “all from the same thief” and that “THIS IS A SCAM!”
She then went on to share her tale of woe, mentioning Bui by name and identifying his ad for a condo/apartment in Vero Beach. But she doesn’t expect her efforts to deter him.
In fact, she recently responded to one of his ads – just to see if Bui was still running his scam – and used a different email address so he wouldn’t know she was on to him.
“He came back with the same routine,” Skwarzynski said. “The only difference was that, this time, I was told to transfer the funds to a woman named Cheryl-something in Alabama, and he gave me her account number and a routing number for Regions Bank.
“So, obviously, he’s working with more than one other person,” she added. “What I haven’t figured out is how he gets his money. That’s the missing link.”
We can only hope that link will someday lead someone to him, maybe even the police.
