Low-Income Families Victims of Rent Scam

Last Saturday, Marta Budde and her family arrived with great anticipation at a large, neat California bungalow in Silver Lake that they had rented a few days earlier with a deposit of $1,500. But instead of finding a front-door key, they found the yard crowded with members of other families, some with their belongings. They, too, had paid rental deposits for the home, some giving up as much as $1,750.

“I started asking, ‘Do you live here?’ And they all said, ‘We were going to live here,’ ” Budde said Monday. “And they said, ‘You are another of the defrauded.’ ”

Police on Monday said at least eight low-income families apparently paid more than $13,000 in cash--their long-term savings--to two professional-looking con artists posing as landlords.

Gave Cash Deposits

LAPD Detective Andy Cicoria said the families, responding to advertisements in the Los Angeles Times and La Opinion, the leading Spanish-language newspaper, gave the men cash deposits in exchange for signed receipts and signed lease agreements on forms commonly used by legitimate Los Angeles landlords.

He said the families--most of them Latinos--are victims of a very common scam “that is almost impossible to guard against.”

Cicoria, of the Rampart Division, said the two men had a key to the empty house on North Commonwealth Avenue and interviewed each family at the home just like any landlord would.

The two have now disappeared. The phone number listed in ads last week has been disconnected and the real owner, who put the house up for sale months ago, has changed the locks.

Somehow Obtained Key

Police said they do not know how the men got a key to the house. Tomoko Kamikawa, a real estate agent at the Century 21 office on Hollywood Boulevard who represents the owner, said no prospective buyers or agents have requested use of a key stored at her office since the house went on the market three months ago.

“We don’t know how anyone got in the house, but we think a professional locksmith could have done it,” Kamikawa said.

“These families were just like anybody--you see something in the paper and you believe it, forgetting anyone can advertise,” Cicoria said. “I wish there was something I could suggest, but there isn’t a quick, easy way to determine if a person is an owner.”

Indeed, the man who identified himself as Jeff Collins or Jeff Collini, seemed every bit a landlord.

“We toured the home, and he asked me how well I would maintain the house,” said Francisco Nunez, 25, whose family must move soon because their home in the Temple-Beaudry area is being razed to make way for luxury housing. “Everything seemed normal, and they gave us a contract which we read and signed.”

Saved Three Paychecks

Nunez, a hotel kitchen worker, saved three paychecks to raise the $1,500 he paid to “Jeffrey Collini.” Now, he said sadly, “it will be months before I can save it again. It was all the money we had.”

A secretary in the Century 21 office, besieged on Saturday by frantic families, helped many find storage for their belongings and let one desperate family stay overnight in her home, Kamikawa said.

“We really feel sorry for those people and we do not know what to do,” Kamikawa said.

The con artists advertised the spacious 3-bedroom, 2-bath home for just $750--low enough to attract large numbers of working poor families. The home could probably rent for more than $1,200, according to Kamikawa.

“These families must have been thrilled when they saw the home,” Kamikawa said. “It is terrible.”

Most of the families cannot simply return to their old homes. Budde, who was fighting an eviction after angering her landlord by demanding that her roof be fixed, gave up her legal battle when she rented the new place. Now, her savings stolen, she said she is near panic.

Nunez, who has a mentally disabled daughter, has been allowed to stay for a few days by his landlord, but his home will be torn down very soon.

Phillip Lance, a minister at St. Athanasius and St. Paul Episcopal Church in Echo Park, who is trying to help the families, said many have been victimized twice--by the con artists, but also by rapid change that is wiping out older, affordable neighborhoods near downtown in favor of luxury housing and office towers.

“We’ve been fighting to help these hard-working families, to keep them housed and not turned into the streets,” Lance said. “And now somebody comes along and does this.”