Monday, August 27, 2007
Rental Rascals
10News.com viewers help I-TEAM expose bad guy
We recently reported on a rental scam working our region. Two males and a female, possibly more are involved. These rascals are able to access the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) used by Realtors to develop their scheme. Those listings, which are supposed to be used by Realtors only, show homes for sale, if the home is vacant, provide details about the property and in some cases, a code number to punch into the gadget that secures the house's front door. It's "old" technology and the crooks were able to access the house keys by using the code in the MLS listing. The reason these old school lock boxes are being used right now is because of the glut of homes for sale in the San Diego market. Some realtors apparently ran out of the newer, high-tech SentrilLock lockboxes which require an encrypted card and a PIN number that changes every day. So apparently the bad guys targeted high end homes with the access code provided on the MLS site. The bad guys would cut and paste the pictures and features of the property from MLS listings onto Craigslist. They offered them at reasonable rent, requiring a first and last months deposit as well as a security deposit. At least three properties were involved, all for sale and all vacant. They set up the "appointments" for every 45 minutes, collecting money from unsuspecting renters though the day while they worked one property. Then they moved onto another property they had listed for rent on Craigslist.
We found they used at least three different cell numbers.
We are still hearing from victims and we suspect these rental rascals made thousands of dollars in a very short time.
WE HAVE A NEW DEVELOPMENT.
My blog readers are the first to know this. Anthony Zoccolillo has been identified by multiple sources as the man in the video who enters the home illegally and then runs from our cameras. I have provided you a still photo of Zoccolillo as seen in our video..and another as seen on a MySpace website which we have been tipped to. Thanks for those who have helped us continue to pursue this scheme.
Still of Anthony Zoccolillo from 10News I-Team video.
Photo of Anthony Zoccolillo from MySpace page.
Another picture of Zoccolillo from MySpace page.
MORE ON THIS I TEAM EXCLUSIVE STORY:
Sandicor, which is the largest MLS in the county, posted this notice to Realtors after we contacted them. We thank them for their quick resposne. Hopefully this shuts down these rip-off artists in San Diego. We learned the cons are on the move and at least one gang member is be heading elsewhere and we are in the process of alerting other regional MLS systems.
We are cooperating with the the San Diego Police Department. A detective involved in the case asks if you have information you can route it to SDPD through the normal channels or forward onto the I Team and we will contact the detective on your behalf.
Warning posted on Sandicor Web site.
MORE ON THIS STORY:
We had received a tip that the guy we "captured" on video was a federal parole. We needed to confirm this so we did what any good citizen would do, we contacted the parole office--telling them we had video of someone committing a crime who may or may not be on federal parole. The main public information office in Sacramento didn't return our call in a timely fashion so we asked the agency locally.
(Feds public information officers are very protective of their turf--and get upset if you go around them but we had no choice on this)
We sent the local Feds a still of the bad guys picture and information on the scheme to their office here in San Diego. I explained if he wasn't in their system, we would look for other agencies who might have him on probation. (Don't believe all you hear about these agencies cooperating because of the attacks on 9-11) My request was simple, I thought. Here is the response from the number two guy locally to this request.
The response to our request
Click to enlarge.
My response to the response
Click to enlarge.
Again, we wanted to find out--yes or no---is he in the Federal justice system somewhere? If not we would spend more time finding out which, if any agency, has him on probation.
jwblog@10news.com
We recently reported on a rental scam working our region. Two males and a female, possibly more are involved. These rascals are able to access the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) used by Realtors to develop their scheme. Those listings, which are supposed to be used by Realtors only, show homes for sale, if the home is vacant, provide details about the property and in some cases, a code number to punch into the gadget that secures the house's front door. It's "old" technology and the crooks were able to access the house keys by using the code in the MLS listing. The reason these old school lock boxes are being used right now is because of the glut of homes for sale in the San Diego market. Some realtors apparently ran out of the newer, high-tech SentrilLock lockboxes which require an encrypted card and a PIN number that changes every day. So apparently the bad guys targeted high end homes with the access code provided on the MLS site. The bad guys would cut and paste the pictures and features of the property from MLS listings onto Craigslist. They offered them at reasonable rent, requiring a first and last months deposit as well as a security deposit. At least three properties were involved, all for sale and all vacant. They set up the "appointments" for every 45 minutes, collecting money from unsuspecting renters though the day while they worked one property. Then they moved onto another property they had listed for rent on Craigslist.
We found they used at least three different cell numbers.
We are still hearing from victims and we suspect these rental rascals made thousands of dollars in a very short time.
WE HAVE A NEW DEVELOPMENT.
My blog readers are the first to know this. Anthony Zoccolillo has been identified by multiple sources as the man in the video who enters the home illegally and then runs from our cameras. I have provided you a still photo of Zoccolillo as seen in our video..and another as seen on a MySpace website which we have been tipped to. Thanks for those who have helped us continue to pursue this scheme.
Still of Anthony Zoccolillo from 10News I-Team video.
Photo of Anthony Zoccolillo from MySpace page.
Another picture of Zoccolillo from MySpace page.
MORE ON THIS I TEAM EXCLUSIVE STORY:
Sandicor, which is the largest MLS in the county, posted this notice to Realtors after we contacted them. We thank them for their quick resposne. Hopefully this shuts down these rip-off artists in San Diego. We learned the cons are on the move and at least one gang member is be heading elsewhere and we are in the process of alerting other regional MLS systems.
We are cooperating with the the San Diego Police Department. A detective involved in the case asks if you have information you can route it to SDPD through the normal channels or forward onto the I Team and we will contact the detective on your behalf.
Warning posted on Sandicor Web site.
We had received a tip that the guy we "captured" on video was a federal parole. We needed to confirm this so we did what any good citizen would do, we contacted the parole office--telling them we had video of someone committing a crime who may or may not be on federal parole. The main public information office in Sacramento didn't return our call in a timely fashion so we asked the agency locally.
(Feds public information officers are very protective of their turf--and get upset if you go around them but we had no choice on this)
We sent the local Feds a still of the bad guys picture and information on the scheme to their office here in San Diego. I explained if he wasn't in their system, we would look for other agencies who might have him on probation. (Don't believe all you hear about these agencies cooperating because of the attacks on 9-11) My request was simple, I thought. Here is the response from the number two guy locally to this request.
The response to our request
Click to enlarge.
My response to the response
Click to enlarge.
Again, we wanted to find out--yes or no---is he in the Federal justice system somewhere? If not we would spend more time finding out which, if any agency, has him on probation.
jwblog@10news.com
Posted at 11:20 AM by jw
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