[HN Gopher] A man who stole a hotel
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A man who stole a hotel
Author : chat
Score : 91 points
Date : 2021-04-27 05:38 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.capitaldaily.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.capitaldaily.ca)
| tartoran wrote:
| I coould bet Durkin is a narcissist or a psychopath, more likely
| the former. I've been stung by such a specimen and the amount of
| lies, deception and pain is extremelty unpleasant. Many times the
| only way to move on is to swallow the loss and forget about it.
| They have a way of continually causing pain after a long time,
| turning people against you even if you have plenty of evidence
| against them.
|
| These type of people are simply unfixable, they're in a continual
| search for targets for their deceptions.
|
| In my case, the speciment left the US leaving behind his family
| and a 6 year old daughter to escape justice.
| v77 wrote:
| British Columbia has long been the scam capital of North America
| (well, maybe tied with Miami). It brings a tear to my eye to see
| it all grown up from the days of ripping off seniors for junior
| mining company shares on the old VSE to its current status as
| international money laundering hub for the entire Pacific Rim.
| pjmorris wrote:
| I'd be happy to compare notes, but as a Florida native and
| long-time Dade-Broward resident, I find it hard to believe that
| Miami isn't the scam capital of the Americas.
| faster wrote:
| I thought it was Naples FL, tied with Newport Beach, CA.
| Every financial offer I've gotten with one of those places in
| the return address has been extremely scammy looking, and I
| lost a pile of money to a Newport Beach scammer in the 80s.
|
| But then Georgia allows loan terms that are not allowed in
| other states, so predatory lenders like to be based in GA,
| IIRC. I think Florida is second in allowing non-consumer-
| friendly loan terms though.
| mattm wrote:
| FYI The author of the story did an AMA on Reddit if interested in
| some more background
| https://www.reddit.com/r/VancouverIsland/comments/mwcdta/i_i...
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Now this was a crazy story. What should a savvy businessperson do
| to avoid this type of situation happening to them? Presumably
| this would have all been avoided by requiring up-front payment,
| in escrow, before allowing someone to become physically involved
| in the business? A background check would probably not have gone
| amiss either. Any other tips from more experienced folks on here?
| mattm wrote:
| If someone says they'll come up with the money by X date and
| they don't, maybe you give them one more chance but that's it.
| Then the deal is off.
|
| It's such a heartbreaking story. It seems the conman caught the
| owners in a perfect storm where they were somewhat desperate to
| sell based on:
|
| - 2 previous sale attempts had fallen through
|
| - there was a throwaway line I read somewhere that they were
| dealing with some personal issues. Perhaps those issues took
| away their focus
|
| - the wife was an overly trustful person
|
| - it seems like they just wanted to retire and enjoy the rest
| of their lives
|
| I think the main lesson is that no matter how much you want a
| deal to work out, you still need to be willing to walk away. A
| bad deal can be much, much worse than no deal at all.
|
| A similar story is how John Spano bought the NHL team the New
| York Islanders despite having no money. There's a great ESPN 30
| for 30 episode about it. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-
| john-spano-bought-the-is...
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| > you still need to be willing to walk away. A bad deal can
| be much, much worse than no deal at all.
|
| Yes yes yes. For almost all things in life you need to be
| able (and therefore on some level to be prepared) to walk
| away. And if you can't, you should set as a top priority
| creating the ability to do so (and don't let on to the other
| side that you can't walk away).
|
| If the other side of the deal picks up on the fact you can't
| or won't walk away and is malicious, they will savage you.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Presumably this would have all been avoided by requiring up-
| front payment, in escrow, before allowing someone to become
| physically involved in the business?
|
| Yes, following the normal protocols and using lawyers and not
| using their gut feelings or caring about the buyer's story
| would have prevented this.
|
| The guy was broadcasting that he was not a desirable buyer,
| scam or no scam:
|
| > Thirteen times he and Gregory requested pushing back the
| closing date, saying they'd be prepared to close "tomorrow" or
| "next week" or "next month" or in "the first weeks of the new
| year."
|
| I searched the article for "earnest money" and didn't see any
| mention of it, which means the sellers were engaging with this
| buyer without the most basic of real estate transaction
| protections for the seller:
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/earnest-money.asp
| faster wrote:
| I don't know anything about the normal real estate closing
| process in Canada, but I learned (through a word game, of all
| things) that there are types of real estate fraud in some
| countries that are impossible (without explicit seller
| cooperation) in others.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazumping
| motohagiography wrote:
| Gazumping seems unethical, but it's also a quirk of
| language and agreeability. The "gazundering," aspect of
| this scheme is interesting from a negotiations perspective.
| If anyone accuses you of it, I'd recommend rejecting the
| accusation as bullying, and always refer any bid to looking
| at it when it's on paper.
|
| If you have bought a car and agreed on the price, only to
| find there is another 30% of "fees," insurance, financing
| costs, freight, and random whatevers, or taken a minimum
| wage job only to be charged a uniform rental fee, you have
| been taken by a similar scheme. There are people who do
| this kind of scamming full time as their living, we call
| them "salespeople."
|
| If a seller starts the discussion by advertising an offer
| to sell for $100, and the buyer agrees to continue the
| conversation at that anchor price, and then after getting
| details about the goods, the buyer comes back with a lower
| offer of $50, that's a pretty transparent negotiation.
| Naming this "gazundering," seems like a ploy to discourage
| beginners from negotiating.
|
| It is the seller's responsibility to line up other offers,
| and it's on them to manage the opportunity cost of any
| discussions. Using deception to get leverage on the seller
| by using a fake offer that causes the seller to let go of
| their other opportunities would be a more accurate
| description of the unethical aspect of "gazundering," but
| even then, high stakes negotiations can become a kind of
| warfare.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Gazumping is certainly annoying (OK maybe that's a bit too
| mild) but it's definitely nothing like "real estate fraud".
|
| In the UK, a small property sale goes through a process
| roughly like this (skipping quite a few steps):
|
| 1. Buyer and seller informally agree to buy/sell a property
| for a given price.
|
| 2. Lawyers for both parties get to work, mostly on the
| buyers side to check everything is OK (e.g. structurally
| sound, all necessary planning and building regs in place).
|
| 3. Once everything is ready to go, both parties sign the
| contract - this is called "exchange" (because each side
| signs the contract separately then send their signed
| version to the other).
|
| 4. The contract typically (not always) stipulates that the
| transfer of money and ownership won't take place until
| about a week later - that time is called "completion".
|
| If either party tried to pull out between 3 and 4 then this
| is a serious problem - they essentially can't, or if they
| do then it is breach of contract. But gazumping is where
| the seller pulls out before 3 (because they've gotten a
| better offer from another buyer before then). At that point
| the buyer has probably shelled out some legal fees but
| hasn't paid anything to the seller - I don't see how you
| could consider this fraud. Indeed the buyer could just as
| well pull out (e.g. because the checks reveals something
| about the house they don't like) or try to renegotiate the
| price. That's all above board before the contract is
| signed.
|
| Edit: More specifically, I don't see how you could come up
| with a mechanism to prevent it. Should you lock in the sale
| price at step 1, before you do any checks? What if (as the
| buyer) the house is not in the condition it initially
| appeared to be? What if (as the seller) the buyer seems to
| be dragging their heels and delaying the transaction? You
| need a way to pull out of the transaction before the
| contract is signed.
| gambiting wrote:
| Just FYI, because you specifically said UK not England -
| not all of UK works like this. In Scotland you sign a
| legally binding contract to buy the property at step 1.
| You can only get out of it if the house is found to be in
| poorer condition than advertised through inspections and
| solicitor work. So if you are trying to sell a house,
| sign a contract with someone at step 1, then someone
| offers you better money between 2 and 3 - tough luck,
| it's _really_ hard to get out of it, you pretty much have
| to sell at the price you agreed to.
| toyg wrote:
| You should probably mention that process and penalties
| are substantially different between England and Scotland.
| Property is one of the areas where legislation and
| customs differ a lot between UK countries.
| motohagiography wrote:
| It wasn't clear to me whether ther Philips' engaged their
| lawyer to look over the orginal new share agreement, who should
| have advised them of the risks. The most savvy business people
| I know treat every deal as an objective 3rd party thing and
| have clear personal boundaries.
|
| The mother of the current Prime Minister being involved could
| have been an alarm bell as she has a vulnerable history, and
| fits the archetype of the sort of high profile / low judgment
| person a scammer like that would leverage. It's almost always
| the kooky ones who let the vampires in.
|
| There is also a low-level scam where "investors," find
| distressed businesses, take on enough shares to get access the
| bank accounts, and loot the accounts, sometimes after managing
| to get a bank loan for whatever "improvements" they were going
| to make. It's not small, as it's tens or hundreds of thousands
| of dollars, and it works because when they're done, the victims
| can't even afford the lawyers to sue them for it.
| mattbee wrote:
| When you want out of a business, the pull of someone who's
| promising to get you out is very powerful. I can see how it
| would sap your energy for due diligence.
|
| When I sold my business, even when the deal was going smoothly
| and I had a partner & advisors to lean on, it's still agonising
| and you desperately want little bumps and delays to just go
| away.
| hahla wrote:
| Pushing back the closing date for $182k is a red flag, then
| they proceeded to agree pushing it back a total of 13 times.
| dspig wrote:
| Why does the article sometimes repeat a sentence or two of itself
| as a quote?
| gnatman wrote:
| It's a magazine typesetting / layout thing called a "pull
| quote"
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| What is this supposed to achieve? I'm always annoyed by
| those.
| cainxinth wrote:
| You have to understand that the average reader doesn't read
| the whole article. Most just skim and take in the
| headlines, subheadings, pull quotes, and pictures.
|
| But, that's not the stated rationale for a pull quote,
| which is technically meant just to highlight an important
| piece of information from the article.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| They work quite well in a physical magazine. They're much
| larger than the surrounding text, and catch your eye as you
| flick through the pages. They're chosen to pique your
| interest so that you end up reading the whole article.
|
| On a website, where you only see these pull quotes if
| you've already made a decision to read through the article,
| and they're not even any bigger than the regular text, they
| make no sense at all.
| jameswst wrote:
| Thank you for this feedback! I'm the editor at Capital
| Daily, and I struggled with the decision whether or not
| to use pull quotes. I agree that our site's pull-quote
| format is too small, so they look weird, but I did want
| to give people who are scanning a chance to drop in in
| different places. I guess that wasn't achieved here.
| klyrs wrote:
| It's a pet peeve of mine. In a single-column format
| they're redundant and distractingly out of context.
| pwg wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote:
|
| "a pull quote ... is a key phrase, quotation, or excerpt
| ... serving to entice readers into the article or to
| highlight a key topic ... They can add visual interest to
| text-heavy pages with few images or illustrations"
| toyg wrote:
| Sometimes I honestly wish I could be a bit like this Durkin guy.
| I feel anxious when I owe a grand or two, I can't imagine how I'd
| feel taking over property with the owners' own money. But in
| practice, as it says in the story, crime does pay; this guy
| likely stashed away a few millions in the Caymans and will retire
| sipping daiquiri, while the honest families getting conned will
| keep struggling to the end of their days
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I'd bet good money that if this conman was involved in any sort
| of drug-related business the cops would come out the same day to
| arrest and deport him.
| UseStrict wrote:
| Pretty much every Canadian police force is useless. They exist
| seemingly only to harass indigenous peoples and tribes. I don't
| think I've ever seen them solve or pursue a crime that wasn't
| blatantly obvious.
| shill4humanity wrote:
| Or just an anonymous tip that Julian Assange was renting a room
| in that hotel. Surrounded by tanks by the end of the hour.
| nobody5050 wrote:
| This was a wild ride from beginning to end
| kleiba wrote:
| Sure is. I just wish it was all fiction, it would make a
| fantastic suspense novel. Knowing that it actually happened,
| and about the people who fell prey to these fraudsters, having
| lost everything they built up during their lives, is heart
| breaking.
| crocsarecool wrote:
| The description of the hotel with the fireplaces and Japanese
| baths sounded so beautiful. I forgot for a moment that this
| was a story of the hotel getting stolen and thought whoever
| buys it would be well set up to have a lovely business. I
| feel so bad for the owners on the cusp of retirement then
| dragged through hell when they should be enjoying themselves.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > Sure is. I just wish it was all fiction, it would make a
| fantastic suspense novel.
|
| Yeah it was super gripping just like a John Grisham novel.
| Thanks to this great writer for doing justice to such a
| tragic story.
| bb101 wrote:
| We visited Sooke Harbour House back in 2016. It was a unique and
| charming little hotel with beautiful cottage gardens. I have
| lovely memories of taking breakfast on the terrace, surrounded by
| nasturtiums of all colours and having little hummingbirds
| hovering around a fountain within hands reach. One of our best
| meals in North America was in its cosy understated restaurant,
| introducing us to Okanagan Pinot.
|
| Reading about its demise is devastating -- its beauty was a
| credit to both Frederique and Sinclair. If the new owners have
| ripped out the trees and the vegetable beds, I doubt it will
| retain the same magic. A special place we can never visit again,
| sadly.
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