A yellow cab wheeled into the driveway and disgorged luggage and a family of seven from Suriname, eager to start a 10-day vacation.
In the million-dollar home where Steve Chase lives.
A perplexed Chase watched as a woman clutching a rental contract rang his doorbell and asked for the house key.
"I said, 'I hate to say it to you, but this house is not for rent,'" he recalled. "You've been scammed."
The family — mom, dad, two young kids, a teenager and grandparents — departed for a nearby hotel, richer perhaps in wisdom but poorer by $2,700. That was the amount on the contract, Chase said, for their stay at his four-bedroom, four-bath home on North Atlantic Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.
"It's so sad," he said. "These were good people that had good intentions, and they were just shocked."
They are also unlikely to ever see the person who stole their money punished. They were victims of an Internet-based fraud that crossed international borders, making investigation and prosecution difficult.
Since the family from Suriname, other prospective renters or their friends have either called or appeared at Chase's door seeking to claim his home for their vacation nest. At least one other address in his Lauderdale Beach neighborhood has also been falsely portrayed as an attractive vacation site.
It's part of a burgeoning online fraud in which people use legitimate vacation rental websites to list homes, usually in resort areas, as available for rent. They collect rent checks from trusting vacationers who arrive at their destinations to find they paid for an occupied home.
"It's just a very bizarre situation," Chase said.
Teri Barbera, spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, said she had not heard of similar frauds in her jurisdiction.
Websites offering vacation home rentals by their owners are a popular means for people to find suitable vacation homes, often at reasonable prices. The sites act as clearinghouses in which homeowners can list their properties online in various degrees of detail, some with extensive photos, maps and floor plans. Prospective vacationers can then connect with the owner, independent of the website, to arrange dates and rates for a rental.
Scammers list the address of an unsuspecting homeowner and persuade unwary vacationers to wire rent money or send a check to the scammer's post office box.
June Beard, 85, a neighbor of Chase, has in at least five instances had vacationers seek to rent her beachfront home, only to be disappointed.
"The poor people who have come and expect to rent our houses, it's a shame," she said.
One day last year, two young men from Boca Raton turned up at Beard's door. One, the son of a Montreal man who saw the home listed on a rental site, was there to check it out.
"They came to my gate and I talked to them," Beard said. "I said, 'It's a scam. I don't rent my house ever.' I told the boys to immediately call the police."
Given the global nature of the crime, however, police are stymied in efforts to locate, arrest and prosecute the culprits behind the con.
"Our problem is that the victims are from Canada and other countries," said Sgt. Steve Scelfo, head of the Fort Lauderdale police's Economic Crimes Unit. "The money's not actually coming through Fort Lauderdale. We don't have standing jurisdictionally to investigate it."
To add further complication, homeowners such as Chase, though discomfited, are not the ones who are victimized.
"He's not out financially or really the victim of the crime," Scelfo said. He said such cases are the province of the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a federal Department of Justice clearinghouse that analyzes online fraud.
Jeff Lanza, a retired FBI agent turned consultant, said that even then it would be hard to pique a prosecutor's interest.
"It's a relatively small amount for law enforcement," he said of the fraud's take. "At the federal level, they're not even going to look at a case where you've got a $2,700 loss."
Lanza, of Mission, Kansas, said that for precisely these reasons, swindlers choose this particular scam. "They find ways to commit crimes that are unlikely to be prosecuted," he said.
So the scams, victimizing blithe vacationers, continue to occur. "They turn up every now and then," said Beard, a widow and winter resident.
Chase said that about a month ago, an older Quebec couple appeared on his doorstep. Another time, a local man arrived to inspect the property on behalf of a New Jersey banker who wanted to rent it for six adults, four kids and two dogs.
"It's unbelievable," said the banker, Michael McKenna of Pine Beach, N.J., who backed out of the deal and now works only with real estate agents. "They're definitely more trustworthy than going off those Internet sites."
Chase has gotten the two neighborhood homes pulled from listings on four grateful websites. The issue has galvanized him: he's spent more than 100 hours online investigating. He's also lobbying city commissioners and state legislators to take action.
"I'm trying to push for some legislation to hold these websites accountable for the information they post," he said. "I'm making a lot of noise."
rnolin@tribune.com or 954-356-4525
How to avoid rental ripoffs
Experts say the onus is on the renter when choosing a private vacation home. Here are some tips when selecting one online:
Pay with a method that can be tracked, such as a credit card.
Never wire money or send a check.
Check with the local property appraiser to verify the owner's name and address.
Call the owner, request references.
Read previous customers' reviews
Source: Economic Crimes Unit, Fort Lauderdale police
Copyright © 2011, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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