Emil Vlahov, a bartender and owner of a boat service business in Edgartown, has long hoped to purchase a home on the Island. Scrolling through Zillow on a recent morning, one offering caught his eye: a one-acre, buildable lot off Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, listed at $400,000.
Mr. Vlahov was ecstatic.
“I was the first person to bid on the property,” he said, “They called me immediately...it was below market price, and they said it was a motivated seller.”
Soon after Mr. Vlahov placed a bid, however, he realized that something was off.
“They kept pushing me to bid more...and they said they only wanted cash,” he said. “I thought, something doesn’t sound right – it couldn’t be that cheap.”
When he went to town hall to get more information on the property, he was informed that the owners had never listed the lot for sale.
It’s part of a growing trend on Island. As the Vineyard real estate market keeps going up, off-Island scammers have tried to take advantage of the situation, listing houses for sale or rent online without the owner’s knowledge.
“The scams have really accelerated recently,” said Det. Nikolaj Wojtkielo of the West Tisbury police department.
Mr. Wojtkielo said he has been investigating phone and internet scams for several years, though the instances of real estate fraud is a more recent development.
“The risk versus reward is very good for them,” he said of the scammers, who typically operate overseas. In a local department with few resources and limited jurisdiction, Mr. Wojtkielo said he has little ability to pursue charges.
Island real estate broker Jim Feiner has encountered several fraudulent property listings in the past few weeks, all of them up-Island. The first, he said, was a competitively priced home in West Tisbury.
“It wasn’t a super steal, but it was definitely below market,” he said of the listing, and was quickly able to get one of his clients interested in the property. He proceeded to hire an attorney for the process, but was unable to shake the feeling that something was off.
“I found the owners’ address, and I had left the message before. And finally they called me back..and they said, ‘Oh, we’re not selling,’” he said. “You can get pretty far down the pike before you realize that it’s fraud.”
Since then, Mr. Feiner said, he and his colleagues have encountered three more fraudulent listings, though none have gone to closing.
But while a real estate purchase typically has enough checks and balances to identify a fraud, renters might be more susceptible, he said.
“They’ll post a picture of a house and they’ll say, if you want it, wire your deposit,” Mr. Feiner said. “Apparently that’s how they’re getting people to put up their money.”
While Detective Wojtkielo has done some work tracking down the scammers (connecting their business to vacant lots in several countries in Africa), he says preventing the crimes is much easier than apprehending the perpetrators.
“Make sure you do your due diligence,” he said, recommending that folks stick to familiar websites and phone numbers. He added that cold calls should generally not be trusted, and that scammers may have access to some personal information.
He added that people should contact the police department with concerns.
“There is definitely a stigma, people are sometimes embarrassed,” Mr. Wojtkielo said of the victims.
He declined to comment about how much money may have been taken in scams. He also recommended that people try to get a hold of the owner of a listed property before transferring any money.
“We’re fortunate that we’re on an Island that’s kind of old school in that,” he said.
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