I'm writing in to report a case of rental fraud that has taken place in Canada and has continued down into Mexico.
It all started when I posted a request for long-term accommodations on Rentalo.com.
I was contacted by several parties by email and some by phone.
The person who started off this whole chain of events is a woman by the name of Olga Figueroa and she has a web site named vallartarealtyrents.
Olga violated the Rentalo rules by forwarding my information to a woman who calls herself Merry Riemer, (more on her later).
According to what I found out from Rentalo, property owners aren't supposed to forward their listings to outside parties and there is a system block in place, but it doesn't prevent people from doing a cut and paste into an email, which is what happened here. I also told them that they need to change the way their site is run, because they have cautions to travelers advising them to check the legitimacy of the property owner they want to rent from, but that information is not in plain sight but is buried deeper in their site https://rentalo.com/docs/disclaimer.html
It's only after things started to go sour that I found that information, where they the site states that they take no responsibility for what happened. However, I was told by my contact at Rentalo to give them as much detail as possible so they could conduct an internal investigation.
As I was saying, Olga forwarded my information to a woman who calls herself Merry Riemer, from Brandon, Manitoba, email: [email protected] and [email protected]
Tel. (204) 726-8480
The fraud began either when I received an email from Merry or when she was forwarded my information by Olga. (At this moment I'm not sure who is responsible; one thing I can say is that even though I contacted Olga twice by phone trying to find Merry, she never called back, which I find suspicious.)
Initially, none of Merry's listings (in her email) matched my requirements and it was hard to state exactly what I wanted, given the limitations of the Rentalo system.
In conversation, Merry told me of a deal off the system where she didn't have to pay a commission and had a good friend who would rent me a place for $500.00/month near the highway in South Bucerias, but that deal fell through and she found another place for more money ($575/month) 2 kilometers North.
It was pretty steep for me financially, but Merry, knowing that I was afraid I might not get a place (due to finding out that Bucerias and Vallarta was busier than usual due to vacationers being displaced by Cancun) played upon my fear and used it to up the ante.
When I saw that the property didn't match my needs (through photos forwarded to me by a friend of Merry's in the Bucerias area, I immediately told Merry and she said that the woman who owned the property (Liliana Hernandez) would make sure that the security arrangements were upgraded. I was suspicious but I couldn't do anything at that time, except wait until I got to Mexico.
(Also, Merry left Brandon and went to Mexico, not telling me when she was going, which sent me into a panic when I couldn't contact her. Further, she didn't give me her cell phone number in Mexico and there was no way to contact her except by email, which she wasn't answering.)
When I arrived in Mexico on December 13th, I went to see the property and immediately know it wouldn't work. Why? Because the property was so far away from everything that I needed that I would have had to buy a car to make it work, an expense I couldn't afford. When I contacted Merry (by email), she wrote that she was disappointed and tried to talk me into going to Barra de Navidad (some 4 hours away), which I resented. I made it clear I wanted Bucerias and nothing else. She said she would work on it.
On December 16th, I told her that I'd found a temporary place and we could all take time off for awhile. On December 27th, I found a new place and I wrote to her immediately, letting her know that I'd found something long term and I wanted a refund. I offered her some money for her time, but I had no response. I sent her another email on January 3rd, again letting her know that I wanted a refund and that I wanted to resolve the matter by the following Friday, the 6th. But Friday came and went with no response.
On Friday, January 6, I filed a formal complaint with Rental and posted a comment in Olga's Guestbook on Rentalo.com. I followed that up today (Monday, January 09, 2006).
I have a couple of emails (on December 10 &12th) where Merry had said that she was having problems receiving mail with her laptop and claimed to have sent me multiple emails before I arrived (in Mexico) that I never got. Those problems are a possiblity, but Merry could have sent or received email to/from me any time she wanted to. How do I know this? Because she has a public account with Yahoo, which is accessible from any Internet cafe that I've been to in Canada, as well as in Vallarta, Neuvo Vallarta or Bucerias. I know the area and there are tons of internet Cafe's there.
Further, Merry repeatedly ignored/refused my request to give me her Mexican cell phone number and when I tried to locate her by calling her home in Brandon, the people taking care of her place refused to give me a contact phone number, saying they didn't have one.
I don't believe that. No one would give over care of their home to friends without having a contact number in the event of an emergency. It doesn't make any sense. I made a mistake in not getting a rental agreement contract but I do have a solid email trail, both to and from Merry, recording our communications. This is the first of many more postings if I don't get my money back by Monday (January 9th) at the latest.
SG
P.S. She was good, I admit. I even let her get away with talking me into putting down a full month's rent, which I really couldn't afford. But then again, I was in fear of not getting a place and having to come back to Canada and she took full advantage of that fact. The one really important thing I learned is never to make important decisions when in a state of fear; to sit still and wait it out, no matter how painful it feels.
The other thing I learned, after sending her the money by money order, is that I could have put a stop payment on it- something I didn't know at the time, but learned only a few days ago. Another thing I've learned is why so many people quit during the reporting process, due to the large volume of paperwork to do.)
Still, I'm posting this due in part to the belief that if she ripped me off, she probably did so to others. If enough people come forward, we can shut her down.
For reference here are a few web sites to consider:
Report Economic Crime Online
phonebusters
canada-complaints.com
Nathan
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada
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