Alleged Rent-To-Own / Rent Skimming Scams Among Those Linked To Jailed Twin Cities-Area Mortgage Broker

In Oakdale, Minnesota, the Pioneer Press reports:

• An east metro mortgage broker imprisoned for defrauding co-workers and customers across the Twin Cities metro area is being investigated for similar accusations in Oakdale. Oakdale police have searched U.S. Bank in Oakdale for documentation of transactions involving Christopher James Whidby, 32, his alleged victims and the companies he did business under, according to documentation supporting a search warrant executed by Oakdale police. Investigators believe the Woodbury man might have swindled more than half a dozen people out of tens of thousands of dollars in the past 2½ years.

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• According to documents related to the search warrant, police are looking into five separate scams. In one, Kari Lynn Mueller, 34, and her husband entered into a rent-to-own agreement with one of Whidby's companies for a residence on Upper 24th Street in Oakdale. The Muellers made monthly home payments to Whidby's company, and Whidby assured them he was applying the payments to their home loan. But in April, the couple learned their house was going into foreclosure and their property taxes were delinquent, the documents state. Whidby, they say, never paid them. "It has devastated our lives," Mueller said Friday. She said she and her family have had to move out of the house. According to an affidavit, the couple lost more than $20,000 in the deal. [...] Another couple told police they lost about $2,800 in a similar scam with Whidby involving a residence in Somerset, Wis.

For more, see Oakdale / Broker may have scammed others (Woodbury man already serving three years for fraud).

For more on "Rent To Own" and Lease / Option real estate scams, see "Rent To Own" Scams I.

For other posts involving rent / equity skimming scams, see Tenants Unwittingly Renting Homes In Foreclosure I , II , III , and IV. rent to own lease purchase option scams zebra; equity skimming unwittingly gamma