Stay away from this apartment rental

[French jurist]

Well, if she wanted to sue, she could go for :
- Danos y perjuicios (civil)
- Calumnia y injurias (criminal)


Injurias would be tricky because Bradly, one of the two victims, lives here and now that he knows her real identity (because it's quite obvious she is behind the two other aliases : Valeria and the other name I don't remember), he could file a denuncia policial (I don't think the prescripcion has operated yet).
Calumnias (maybe I'm wrong), I don't think it could be invoked at all.

Remain Danos y perjuicios, but sincerely, it has been proven now she has been using two other identities, two people have been suffering the exact same type of "scam" using the same modus operandi (likely she would pretend that the apartments were returned in a bad condition, hence the reason for not giving back the deposit).
Furthermore, what could be the perjudice : having difficulties renting again the apartment ? to be known has having used two aliases ? and so on...

Without mentionning the possibility (we don't know yet) that her credentials may have been inflated like a Vedette's breats ?

And who to sue ? The webmaster in the US ? Each one of us (because we were like 15 or 20 bringing infos) ?

And many other aspects make me think she wouldn't do anything.

***

But Dennis raised a valid question that I would formulate differently :

We all suffered many scams and she is like a scapegoat, that's true. And nothing is more dangerous than a mass of angry people (hopefully and quite surprisingly, we maintained by ourselves a certain level in the thread, not falling into gross insults, ..).

There's one aspect we should not forget : all those infos we have given and spread around will remain around for 5 years (indeed, a kind of private justice with all the dangers associated to it).

She was no Madoff neither, in fact she was not very clever (to tell you the truth she reminds me of my ex-wife or future-ex wife since I'm still married : likely an interesting girl, cute, liking art & fashion, but with a berzerk side and a strange relation to money).

***

Anyway, this thread will remain useful in the future : If ANY foreigner coming here starts to get into trouble, and because most of the housing deals are done over the Net (meaning the LL here use internet), any link to this thread should put a wannabee-Madoffito back into the right track.

Cheers

 

[TomAtAlki]

I have read most of this thread but admit to skipping some of the middle. With that in mind I have a question that (my apologizes) may have been answered.

This whole this doesn't make any sense. Why would a person rent out an apartment cheap (apparently under market) to make $200US at the end of the rental period?

 

[citygirl]

I dont know exactly what the OP paid but it was about market value if I remember correctly.

So one assumes the rental was the main thing and then keeping the deposit was just icing on the cake if you will. I don't think it was the main objective. And quite honestly, it sounds like the owner was in some financial difficulties and probably figured at 200 or 300 dollars a deposit, no tourist was going to make that much of a fuss about it. But if you have 6 or 8 people a year losing their deposit, that's an extra thousand or 2 in her pocket every year.

Again, my guess is she figured it was a small enough amount that no one would really ever do anything and she wasn't *really* committing a crime.

 

[LAtoBA]

Well, if she wanted to sue, she could go for :
- Danos y perjuicios (civil)
- Calumnia y injurias (criminal)


Injurias would be tricky because Bradly, one of the two victims, lives here and now that he knows her real identity (because it's quite obvious she is behind the two other aliases : Valeria and the other name I don't remember), he could file a denuncia policial (I don't think the prescripcion has operated yet).
Calumnias (maybe I'm wrong), I don't think it could be invoked at all.

Remain Danos y perjuicios, but sincerely, it has been proven now she has been using two other identities, two people have been suffering the exact same type of "scam" using the same modus operandi (likely she would pretend that the apartments were returned in a bad condition, hence the reason for not giving back the deposit).
Furthermore, what could be the perjudice : having difficulties renting again the apartment ? to be known has having used two aliases ? and so on...

Without mentionning the possibility (we don't know yet) that her credentials may have been inflated like a Vedette's breats ?

And who to sue ? The webmaster in the US ? Each one of us (because we were like 15 or 20 bringing infos) ?

And many other aspects make me think she wouldn't do anything.

***

But Dennis raised a valid question that I would formulate differently :

We all suffered many scams and she is like a scapegoat, that's true. And nothing is more dangerous than a mass of angry people (hopefully and quite surprisingly, we maintained by ourselves a certain level in the thread, not falling into gross insults, ..).

There's one aspect we should not forget : all those infos we have given and spread around will remain around for 5 years (indeed, a kind of private justice with all the dangers associated to it).

She was no Madoff neither, in fact she was not very clever (to tell you the truth she reminds me of my ex-wife or future-ex wife since I'm still married : likely an interesting girl, cute, liking art & fashion, but with a berzerk side and a strange relation to money).

***

Anyway, this thread will remain useful in the future : If ANY foreigner coming here starts to get into trouble, and because most of the housing deals are done over the Net (meaning the LL here use internet), any link to this thread should put a wannabee-Madoffito back into the right track.

Cheers

I have kept up with this thread for awhile now. While it seems quite clear this woman is a scam artist of sorts, the only thing that has troubled me is the lack of moderation pertaining to this thread.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the person in question has not had a chance to defend any of the purported accusations and has been pretty much slandered (perhaps not in the legal sense) from hell and back. To be honest I find it a little troubling. This time around it seems this woman is definitely not innocent. But what happens if someone wanted to fabricate and then disseminate a well-crafted story to defame a business rival, former employee/employer, friend and so on and so forth?

It would be all to easy to craft two or three user names and report the "same" thing happening to them.

I don't know....I just feel like when it comes to things like this, where you could potentially ruin someone's reputation and or livelihood permanently, a little more confirmation beyond the anecdotal and a chance for the accused to respond should be put into place before digging up every public record we can possibly find on said person.

Just my two cents....in no way trying to be an ass.

 

[Bailey Essrog]

I have kept up with this thread for awhile now. While it seems quite clear this woman is a scam artist of sorts, the only thing that has troubled me is the lack of moderation pertaining to this thread.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the person in question has not had a chance to defend any of the purported accusations and has been pretty much slandered (perhaps not in the legal sense) from hell and back. To be honest I find it a little troubling. This time around it seems this woman is definitely not innocent. But what happens if someone wanted to fabricate and then disseminate a well-crafted story to defame a business rival, former employee/employer, friend and so on and so forth?

It would be all to easy to craft two or three user names and report the "same" thing happening to them.

I don't know....I just feel like when it comes to things like this, where you could potentially ruin someone's reputation and or livelihood permanently, a little more confirmation beyond the anecdotal and a chance for the accused to respond should be put into place before digging up every public record we can possibly find on said person.

Just my two cents....in no way trying to be an ass.

She has had plenty of chances to defend herself before this thread really blew up. First when I called and e-mailed her at least 20 times with no response and before I decided to take this public, and then again after I posted this thread. It was clear that she saw the thread because not long after I posted it, all of her Craigslist ads, personal website, blogs, business sites, etc., were immediately deactivated, as were all of her multiple e-mail addresses and phone numbers. If she was in fact innocent and wanted to defend herself, she certainly had the opportunities to step up to the plate. Instead, she tried to cover her tracks. If you don't buy my story, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[LAtoBA]

She has had plenty of chances to defend herself before this thread really blew up. First when I called and e-mailed her at least 20 times with no response and before I decided to take this public, and then again after I posted this thread. It was clear that she saw the thread because not long after I posted it, all of her Craigslist ads, personal website, blogs, business sites, etc., were immediately deactivated, as were all of her multiple e-mail addresses and phone numbers. If she was in fact innocent and wanted to defend herself, she certainly had the opportunities to step up to the plate. Instead, she tried to cover her tracks. If you don't buy my story, I don't know what to tell you.

It's clear you skimmed through my post rather than reading it. I clearly stated she did not appear to be innocent. If you can't read I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Bailey Essrog]

It's clear you skimmed through my post rather than reading it. I clearly stated she did not appear to be innocent. If you can't read I don't know what to tell you.

You're right, I went back and you did say that, my bad. About her not being able to defend herself though, she really had many, many chances. This is a public forum and the door was open for her to call me on my bullshit if she wanted to. I think the thread would have taken on a different tone if she had come on here and said something like, for example, "I didn't return the deposit because the apartment was damaged." It would have brought some balance to the discussions and maybe readers would have started questioning whether I indeed had ulterior motives. I even tried sending her an e-mail with a link to the thread but at that point she had cut off all the contact info I had of hers.

 

[sesamosinsal]

She obviously knows this forum exists. She's registered here before, and even posted an ad advertising her services last year. It has since fallen off the deep end, so you'll have to take my word on that too. If I'm not mistaken, this is her account: http://baexpats.org/members/VerBuenosAires.html ... If she wanted to defend herself, she would have come out and said that we were all liars.

The information that's been posted on this thread is publicly available via various sites. Yes, let me say that again: This information is available publicly, for anyone to see. She'd first have to sue Google, her own government, and herself for posting all of the pictures of herself on her own blog.

Regrettably, I kept myself silent on this last year in this thread: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/7175-no-contract-strange-circumstances.html Perhaps if I would have said something, Bailey and others wouldn't have been scammed out of their deposits. But I erred on the side of caution, and never posted any specific information about the incident.

Everyone should be warned about her, and the fact that anyone would come to her defense (especially after reading this thread) is more worrisome than anything else. As Bailey said, she's had plenty of opportunities to defend herself. But she wouldn't even have had to defend herself if she had given me a contract, fixed my air conditioner, given Bailey back his deposit, or given the guy who they scammed before me (according to one of my neighbors in that building, as I reported in my thread in December of '09) his deposit back.

Read the thread again. With regard to myself, I think I've been more than fair with Florencia Marina Doud. She's lucky that I've kept my mouth shut for this long -- almost a whole year. Question is, how long has she been scamming people who ended up having the same attitude as me?

 

[LAtoBA]

She obviously knows this forum exists. She's registered here before, and even posted an ad advertising her services last year. It has since fallen off the deep end, so you'll have to take my word on that too. If I'm not mistaken, this is her account: http://baexpats.org/members/VerBuenosAires.html ... If she wanted to defend herself, she would have come out and said that we were all liars.

The information that's been posted on this thread is publicly available via various sites. Yes, let me say that again: This information is available publicly, for anyone to see. She'd first have to sue Google, her own government, and herself for posting all of the pictures of herself on her own blog.

Regrettably, I kept myself silent on this last year in this thread: http://baexpats.org/expat-life/7175-no-contract-strange-circumstances.html Perhaps if I would have said something, Bailey and others wouldn't have been scammed out of their deposits. But I erred on the side of caution, and never posted any specific information about the incident.

Everyone should be warned about her, and the fact that anyone would come to her defense (especially after reading this thread) is more worrisome than anything else. As Bailey said, she's had plenty of opportunities to defend herself. But she wouldn't even have had to defend herself if she had given me a contract, fixed my air conditioner, given Bailey back his deposit, or given the guy who they scammed before me (according to one of my neighbors in that building, as I reported in my thread in December of '09) his deposit back.

Read the thread again. With regard to myself, I think I've been more than fair with Florencia Marina Daud. She's lucky that I've kept my mouth shut for this long -- almost a whole year. Question is, how long has she been scamming people who ended up having the same attitude as me?

You and Bailey seem to be missing the point. What I said had nothing to do with you and her and your particular incident. I don't need to read the thread again. You seem to be stuck on your issue, but what I find troubling has nothing to with that. It was more about moderation. Forget it.

ETA: There's nothing wrong about warning the public about a potential scam and saying, "Hey this happened to me with so and so who is renting out this apartment. I recommend you don't do business with him/her. By the way he/she has a new ad up on craigslist just so you know and can be aware....here's the link". There's also nothing wrong with giving advice like, "Report her to AFIP, or do this or that". But when people start digging up photos, numbers, law associations, etc etc within a matter of hours I think that's a problem, especially if an accusation hasn't been completely verified. You are messing with someone's career, with someone's reputation that could have lasting consequences.

My point was I think this is where the moderators should have stepped in to lay some boundaries. I think this became a free for all and a quest for blood by board members who are rightfully angry and frustrated after being scammed in Argentina. Hey it could just be the fact that public records are so readily accessible is what makes me uncomfortable. Again let me repeat I don't think this woman is innocent. I'm talking about situations like this in the future. Okay anyway good night folks and carry on as you wish.