Con Artistry

On a quiet evening in mid-June, I was noodling around Craig's List looking for baby stuff to buy (sidebar -- it's amazing how quickly you become conversant with the pros and cons of various bits of plastic junk when you have a baby. Seriously, I thought that I would give my kid hand carved wooden blocks and educational dolls sewn from recycled Guatemalan potato sacks... Instead Violet gets what ever day-glo, Mickey-covered geegaw catches my eye -- I'm like a magpie).

Anyway, I was on Craig's List and it occurred to me that we were going to be out of the country for six weeks and we could actually subsidize our trip by renting our house. No sooner did I have the thought then I was outside, snapping pictures of the exterior for the ad. Andy wasn't home, and so I could happily ignore any nagging questions about the safety, wisdom or intelligence of my decisions, just like when he's not around I can hang pictures without a level.

When Andy did roll in at midnight (he'd been at a friend's birthday) he had beer on his breath and sleep on his brain so I held off our conversation until the morning.

Scene: Our bedroom, 6:45 am, Andy groggily rolling out of bed

Me: Oh, by the way, I put our house up for rent.
Andy (from the bathroom): Ha Ha.
Me: No, I did.
Andy (suddenly out of the bathroom and looming -- groggily-- over me) What?!
Me: Just while we're on vacation... Don't worry, no one will rent it.

Another note -- Andrew and I have very very different attitudes about personal privacy. He comes from a line of people who give false names to the dry cleaner... I, well, I blog about anything, and if you give me two drinks at a party I will tell you the funny story of my trip to the Belgian gynecologist.

We also have different attitudes to crime and safety. Andy likes to lock everything, and close windows -- even on the second floor. He is mistrustful of strangers. I grew up in the country where we only locked our house if we were leaving on a long vacation... and even then the key to the front door was hanging on a nail in the garage. My parents only stopped leaving the keys to the econoline van IN the van after it was stolen and taken on a "joy" ride to Bromont. I question how joyful the young idiots were who had chosen to steal that van, because that mother was more rust than car and with its two-tone paint job, was supremely uncool.

All that to say that these fundamental differences in attitude inflected our reaction to the idea of renting our house. All I saw were dollar signs -- if we could rent this puppy out, then suddenly our holiday was not a grotesque and willful denial of financial reality but actually somewhat feasible. All Andrew could see was some stranger pawing through his underwear and stealing his cufflinks.

Still, I prevailed, mostly by not listening to his concerns -- isn't that how most marital decisions actually get resolved? I then proceeded to screen responses, and surprisingly there were tons.

Initially there was confusion because despite the fact that I specified the rental period in my ad, I was inundated with people wanting to rent it for the year. Then there was a hot lead on a woman in our neighbourhood who was renovating her own place, but the dates didn't match up. For a while a middle eastern gentleman was a good prospect, but his interest dried up when he learned that we didn't have air conditioning.

At last, the only renter still standing was Dr Paul Ettlinger. Initially I was quite excited about Dr Paul Ettlinger, because if you google him, as I dutifully did, you find out that he is an EXTREMELY prominent Harley Street physician in London. Hurray! Some rich respectable guy wants to rent our house. He's coming from London so he'll pay the rent I'm asking without batting an eye. By page two of the google search it gets even better, because Dr Paul Ettlinger was drunkenly assaulted by David Hasselhof when he came to the actor's aid in a swanky London hotel. Anyone who dares to hassle the Hoff is obviously super cool, plus, he would have wicked stories to tell.

I revised my opinion shortly into my correspondence with Dr Paul Ettlinger, because if this dude was a prominent Harley Street doctor, he had cheated his way through medical school, bluffed his way through undergrad, bribed someone to get out of highschool and scammed his way through elementary. His letters were semi-literate, is what I'm saying.

Still, I gave Dr Paul Ettlinger the benefit of the doubt. Here was my thought process:

1. He might just be another Paul Ettlinger, and English, despite his extremely Anglo-Saxon name, might not be his first language.

2. What is the scam? He's going to send me a $500 security deposit and will give me the rest of the money before we leave. If his cheque doesn't clear, he doesn't get the keys. We really have very little to steal -- our electronics are Canadian Tire specials, and we are rich only in books and Le Creuset pots, which I'd be heartbroken if we lost, but don't strike me as hot commodities in the fencing market. I did worry he had bed bugs -- I have a mild phobia -- but that was going to be the risk with all renters

3. We had no one else interested

4. We could really use the coin.

So, finally, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing Dr Paul Ettlinger courrier'd me my deposit cheque. I was delighted when it arrived, and very unhappy when I opened it up and saw that instead of the $500 I was expecting, he had sent my nearly $8,000.

Seeing a cheque with all that money made out to me was unsettling and I emailed him to tell him that the whole rental was off.

But then he sucked me back in.

In my defense by this point Dr Paul Ettlinger called me on the phone from ¨London¨and he seemed perfectly nice and quite concerend about the fridge being empty when he rented the place and wanted to make sure there was a bedroom for his son. English was not his first language, but he was coming to Ottawa for two years to do a "program." Also, he explained that he was also looking at something for long term rental and that his business manager in Toronto, Mr Sammy, had muddled up the cheques.

What I should do, Dr Paul Ettlinger told me, was cash the cheque and then just send Mr Sammy the difference.

I was uneasy about this, I mean ¨Mr Sammy¨ is obviously not a name that inspires trust, but actually talking to Dr Paul Ettlinger had somewhat reassured me. I mean, he was worried about the fridge and his son´s room!

The next day I dutifully trotted off to the bank. The teller and I had a big chat about how potentially sketchy this whole scenario was, and what could she do to tell me that the cheque was legit. She said she could put a five day hold on it, which I thought was a good idea.

I returned home, but walking back my spidey senses were tingling (as they had been the whole time). The scenario struck me as increasingly shady. Was he just hoping that I would send him the difference without first making sure the cheque cleared? That would see me lose a butt load of money if the cheque was no good, which I was increasingly sure it was. (wasn´t? The grammar of that sentence has got me all muddled. You know what I mean).

Sure enough, when I got home and emailed Dr Paul Ettlinger, telling him that he'd have to wait until the bank cleared his cheque, he emailed back right away strongly suggesting that I use my own money to pay him what I "owed" him.

That's when I finally clued in and went to the Otttawa Police Department website, where I found this precise description of what Dr Paul Ettlinger and Mr Sammy were up to:

Overpayment Cheque Fraud

You place an advertisement (newspaper, internet or otherwise) to sell an item.

An interested perspective buyer contacts you and a price is negotiated OR they simply agree to buy the item for the full price you have already asked for.

A cheque arrives and it is written out for a substantially higher amount than the agreed price. Being the honest person that you are - You contact the buyer and let them know. They advise you that there was some sort of accounting error or mistake.

They ask you to just go ahead and cash the cheque. They ask that you take your correct price and send them the remaining funds. Sometimes they even tell you to accept some extra money "for your trouble". They trust you to do this because you were so honest about telling them about the overpayment.

You take the cheque to the bank, deposit it, and withdraw the overpayment amount. You send off the cash and it is agreed that someone will drop by later to pick up your item.

You later discover that the cheque is actually a forged document and absolutely worthless. The bank holds you accountable and you've sent your money to the fraudster possibly along with your sale item.

So, there you have it! I discontinued all contact with Dr Paul Ettlinger (who I am beginning to suspect might not be an actual doctor) and contacted the RCMP´s Fraud-busters to report the shenanigans. The bank eventually declined the cheque (though it took about 3 weeks) and I lost
nothing more than my faith in my fellow man, my ability to mock Andrew´s paranoia, and my chance to hear some great stories about Hasselhoff -- that´s the part that really hurts.

Also, just to let all you potential burglars and bed-bug carrying thieves out there know, we did find a renter for our place and he is very strong and also very Texan, so there are now many many guns guarding the place. Also, rottweillers and we´ve dug a moat, so leave our books and Le Creuset alone!