LITTLE COMPTON — Saturday, July 18, had been a hot day so Ellen and Don O'Neill were enjoying a late afternoon cool-down in the pool of their 39 Taylors Lane South home.

They'd been there a short time when, from over by the pool gate, came an unfamiliar voice.

“Hello — What are you doing here?” someone called.

Ms. O'Neill said she turned to see a man peering over the gate.

“We live here,” she replied. “What are you doing here.”

“Well I've rented this house for a week,” the man said.

“I'm sorry,” Ms. O'Neill recalls saying, but we live here. This house is not for rent, never has been.

“Then he just put his hands on his head and said, 'No — Don't tell me. I think I've been scammed,'” she said.

He apologized for the interruption and excused himself to go break the news to his 13-year-old daughter and her friend who were waiting out by the car. And a call needed to be made to his son who would be arriving soon in another car.

He'd left the car running so that the AC would keep the groceries they'd brought cool.

The O'Neills invited the girls to put on their suits and jump in the pool (they declined — “shy perhaps”) while they tried to sort things out with the man who introduced himself and said he lives in Norwood, Mass.

He is a union sheet metal worker in the Boston area, he said, and had been planning this family vacation for months, ever since seeing the Craigslist ad for a seaside house for rent in Little Compton, Rhode Island. It was the one at the end of a lane with pool, deck, jacuzzi, four bedrooms and spectacular views of the Sakonnet Lighthouse, Atlantic Ocean and Sakonnet River.

He's been scouring the rental listings for awhile, he told them, and was thrilled that such a house could be had for a week in peak season for $3,000 — perhaps coronavirus had something to do with the bargain.

To make sure it was all for real, he actually got in his car and drove down one day in April from Norwood to take a look, to make sure that this house actually exists and resembles the photos.

It was there, just as advertised. Nobody was home and, just as on this day, he'd peaked around the hedge and over the gate — the pool was still covered for the winter. He said he saw the security camera so didn't poke around much further.

He'd seen enough, paid his $3,000 into a bank account as instructed, and began counting the days to July 18.

Only later did it dawn on him that there might be something sketchy about the instructions he was given upon making payment.

He should stop first at a house a few houses down Taylors Lane, he was told, where he could pick up the keys for his rental. He did just that when he arrived with his daughter and her friend — nobody home.

That house is not occupied at the moment, Ms. O'Neill said, adding that she wonders if the scammer was aware of that fact and, if so, how?

It was because he had not been able to pick up the key that he'd gone around to the pool, he said — otherwise he would have let himself in the front door.

“We felt terribly for him, for his daughter and her friend, standing out there by the running car wondering, “now what?” Ms. O'Neill said. The man asked if there might be some other house around to rent.

She called Cherry Arnold of Mott & Chace Sotheby's who had sold them the house over a year before (the O'Neill's had moved across town from their former house on Chase Point).

She had nothing available, Ms. Arnold told them, adding, “The same thing happened to (the owners of another house)” — on the same road.

They then called Mimi Whitmarsh at Little Compton Real Estate. “There's nothing for rent,” was her first reply.

But then she called back. “I might have something,” she said, and drove over. Renters had abruptly dropped out of agreements for two houses.

Ms. Whitmarsh took the man for a look. One was too small but the other, on Chase Point, was perfect, he said — walking distance to South Shore Beach.

He signed up on the spot — for an additional $4,000 … his week vacation was now up to $7,000.

But, Ms. O'Neill said she talked to him at the end of the vacation and he said it had been wonderful — they had all loved their time in Little Compton despite the rocky start.

Ms. O'Neill said she also called Little Compton police. An officer took down the information and suggested that, since the man is from Massachusetts and the rental deal was done in Massachusetts, this is probably a matter for police in that state. She said that, as of July 29, they've heard nothing on where the investigation stands.

Other such cases in town

Little Compton Police Chief Scott Raynes said he is aware of a few cases of this sort in town this summer, though not the half dozen some have mentioned, “and officers have spoken about similar cases in past years” (he has only been on the job here a little over a year).

He said he sympathizes with the victims in such cases, “but realistically there is little the police can do … The police department is going to take a report and probably not find much. These cases are very difficult.”

When the victim is from another town or state, he said he or she would typically file a complaint in the town where they live. If the person who is scammed out of money is a Little Compton resident it would become our case, he said, but that is not usually how it happens.

Solving such cases is difficult, he said, because “the scammers are constantly changing IP addresses,” using burner phones and phony names. “There is usually very little recourse.”

“Craigslist does a lot of good things but it is also a place where a lot of people prey on others.” That is why, he said, police often welcome people to conduct on-line transactions in police station parking lots.

The O'Neills said they have since learned that their case is hardly unique in Little Compton this summer. Ms. O'Neill said the officer told them this was the fourth of fifth case so far this year and she has since heard from others that the number may be a half dozen or more.

Ms. Arnold said she have been multiple fraudulent listings involving alleged Little Compton rental properties and she is personally aware of three such scams pulled off successfully in Little Compton this summer — one of the victims got his money back via PayPal.

She said she has twice flagged as fraudulent a Craigslist rental ad for a Little Compton seaside house that she sold three years ago, “They took the first one down and put up another.”

In both that case and the cases of two houses on Taylors Lane, phony rental ads were fashioned from the photos and details that still linger on-line from advertisements used to sell the houses in recent years.

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