Complaint Review: Wanda Gutowska CENTURY 21 Grande Realty

I went through the above complaint and rebuttal, and I feel I need to speak up, because this story sounds very familiar to me.

In January 2016 in New York 11 members of the organized criminal group from Poland and Czech Republic have been arrested. They are accused for mortgage fraud and making false home insurance claims throughout New York, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio.

According to the scheme they had been purchasing vandalized, stripped out, foreclosed houses in high poverty areas for around $7,000- $ 15,000 cash each. After some cosmetic repair of drywall, painting and installing stolen from other houses fixtures, kitchen and bath cabinets etc. the houses had been ready to take pictures and to purchase a home insurance policies.

Later on, they had been moving all the stuff out to other houses in the area, and - as planned - “the burglaries occurred”.

With a fake police reports claiming that everything, including plumbing and wiring was stolen, they had been filing claims with a variety of home owner insurance companies.

After receiving payments from insurance companies, they had enough money to fix plumbing and wiring, and to put everything back in to make the houses livable.

Selling the houses to “straw buyers” - usually recruited illegal immigrants, who just provided their names and credit history - was the last step of the scam.

Later, the “straw buyers” after getting paid kickbacks for participation in this scam had been leaving the US for good.

With very little work and investment this gang was able to make profit over $100,000 on each house. In most cases the houses had been later rented out to section 8 tenants. And with some luck, the gang members could have been collecting rent for almost two years without making any mortgage payments, until the houses got foreclosed.

Because of this home insurance scam, they had been in continuous need to get more and more cabinets, appliances, furnaces, water heaters, bath tubs, Jacuzzis, fixtures etc.

To maximize the profit they choose not to pay for anything, they just preferred to steal, so, they turned into another scam.

They had been targeting the houses listed for rent or sale. In some cases, posing as buyers, they had been coming in during open houses to leave windows unlocked, and to return a few days later to rob whatever they could from that property.

In other cases, posing as real estate agents, they had been contacting home owners who were looking for tenants or buyers “by owner”, falsely promising them services just to get an access to the property.

They even had gone that far, to print fake real estate broker pocket cards as well as business cards matching real broker names from IDFPR web site.

That way they could get easily keys of the properties from unexpecting owners.

Unfortunately, some of the real estate brokers’ name and reputation have been ruined by this criminal activity, because the scammed home owners filed complaints to the authorities against the people named on the business cards. Some devastated victims also published these stories on customer complaint web sites like http:/(((REDACTED)))/ or http://www.ripoffreport.com/.

Mostly, this criminal group had been targeting Polish and Czech realtors.

Among others, in Illinois Ms.  Wanda Gutowska from CENTURY 21 Grande Realty has been one of victimized Polish real estate brokers, whose good name has been jeopardized.

As the FBI investigation progressed, it was proven that she has never been involved in this kind of activity.

A 42 years old woman from that gang, arrested in Chicago in December 2015, had been posing as her using fake business cards trying to get keys to the properties from naive home owners.

Finally, according to the plan, one of them had got robbed.

Later, the victimized owner or someone in his behalf has filed the complaint with Rip-off Report.

Due to the fact, that this kind of defamatory information could ruin reputation of innocent people,

whoever has filed this complaint is kindly requested to remove it or to modify it, because it points out the honest, hardworking person who did not deserve such kind of harassment.

Thank you.

L N

 The person named Mark Stonenberg did not live or own real estate in Illinois,

 and he also does not exist, he was invented together with the contents of the report.

Someone published the report in order to destroy my good reputation.

I have been real estate agent with a broker licence for 14 years. Both Polish customers

and of other nationalities like me very much. The content published in the report, even for a person

who does not know the law, certainly seems preposterous. There is no possibility to sign a contract

for the sale of the property without the signature of a sponsoring broker of Century 21, Grande Realty,

and then to leave a copy for the customer. if anyoe had any doubuts, he or she can always contact

a broker of the company and check if there was contract for the property in Harwood Heights.

Everything that has been written is so nonsensical that it is even difficult to explain. I am a professional,

with brosd knowledge in the field of real estate. If I had a chance to sell the house that is now partly rented,

I would surely choose an option to sell it with the current rent, which very often has an impact on the rate

or the selling price of house. In addition, usually every person who rents a house has contract for a specific

period of time. It is not possible to make a person leave a flat in one day that he or she rents, which

probably everybody knows.

An agent, after signing the contract and obtaining the key, is fully responsible for damage or theft in the given house.

The reported theft for the amount of approx. $15.000 could not be defined by the word "Fraud", but simply as theft.

Theft is within a group of criminal offences, for which the agent forever loses his license, reimburses the costs

and having stolen such a high amount of money, goes to jail. The description indicates that it was I who was the

thief and the owner has not reported it to the police, nor to the company that employes me. He also did not

ask for the key to be returned. The only thing he did was to publish the report on the webpage called "rip off"

with a note that he does not recommend me nor the company Century 21 for real estate transactions. How pathetic.

It is VERY SAD that among us, the POLES, there are such peopleswho are devoured by jealousy, anger, ect.

Report of similar content, also accusing me of theft, were published on many other websites.

One of them stated that it was published by me, Wanda Gutowska.

Although it is very painful for me, so much that I cannot explain my feelings in any way, Im also very sorry

for the autor of the reports that his inner life is so poor, that he is filled with anger, jealousy and envy in his relations to others.

I WISH THE AUTOR PEACE AND SUCCESS. HE IS CERTAINLY ON HIS WAY TO ACHIVE IT.

Wanda Gutowska