| Anything Real Estate |
| Anything Real Estate Mackay, Rent to buy scam and scam Mackay, Queensland, Australia |
| 2nd of Jul, 2011 by User535155 |
| WARNING to anyone contemplating getting involved with this company in a 'RENT TO BUY' deal. ORLAFIELD PTY LTD (trading as: ANYTHING REAL ESTATE) is a company controlled by Peter NICOL and Caroline EDSON and operating out of Mackay in Queensland, Australia. Commonly known in the industry as 'Wrappers' these people are dishonest and unethical operators preying on unsuspecting buyers and sellers. They suck large sums of money out of the deals they set up while always claiming to be helping people. The only people they are helping are themselves. Most of this scam is targeted at the Buyer, but there are some real traps for Sellers as well. Caroline Edson and Peter Nicol openly brag about being students of the infamous Rick Otton, Australian spriker who teaches people how to set up these deals. Of course 'rent to buy' or 'vendor finance' deals can be set up properly so long as the wrapper is ethical. Experience tells me that many of Rick Otton's students have been involved in scam deals. Is this because of what he is teaching them? I really can't say but I think he may be suspect! The Wrapper should be encouraging you to seek INDEPENDENT legal advice before signing into one of these deals. That means going to a solicitor (not one that they refer you to!) who has a good understanding of these deals. You should ask if you should be signing the deal you have been presented with. Is it safe for you providing all the necessary protections. If not it should be amended or you walk away. Simple! Using these lease option structures Caroline Edson and Peter Nicol (and many other wrappers) have found ways around having to comply with state licencing requirements and local real estate laws by claiming that they are the 'owners' of the property. Of course they are not 'owners' at all but have only obtained an option to buy at some point in the future. Surprisingly, the Office of Fair Trading appear not interested in testing this theory by charging them for operating while unlicenced. This is an offense under the State PAMD Act. Let's face it. Orlafield do everything that a normal real estate agent or property manager does yet they claim that because they are 'owners' they don't have to be licensed as such. The OFT just claim that there is nothing they can do. B/S I say. Why don't they charge them with not being licensed and let the courts decide. That way we would at least have some case law to use one way or the other. The spirit of the PAMD Act was to protect consumers so I'm sure that a court would take a serious look at a case that was presented to them. So why don't the OFT do this? I'll tell you why. They are worried about the fallout from a court decision, that says these people have to be licensed. Currently there are literally hundreds of wrappers putting these deals together and there is no regulation whatsoeever. A court decision like this would tie up thousands of man hours looking into all the others and closing them down as well. As a result there are absolutely no safeguards for consumers in these deals. The wrappers don't operate trust accounts when dealing with people's money, they are not licensed as property managers and that means they have limited knowledge of delivering property management services. So how exactly do they do it? Caroline Edson and Peter Nicol start the process by approaching homebuyers. They con them into entering into very one sided lease agreements which protect the interests of Anything Real Estate but completely exploits the seller's position. This is not always obvious. Despite what EDSON / NICOL say on their website about encouraging people to seek independent legal advice, they really do the opposite. They create a sense of urgency to get the paperwork signed, make throw away comments about lawyers being unnecessary and expensive, so that the seller ends up signing into an agreement that they have no understanding of all on the basis of trust. In at least two of the cases that I know of, sellers were conned into signing option agreements on their homes for 3 years with a $1 option fee being payable. In effect these people were handing control of their property to Orlafield (Anything Real Estate) for 3 years and if anything went wrong during that period, or if Orlafield decided not to exercise the option to purchase, they only stood to lose $1. Anyone with an understanding of property options will understand that this is a con. The next con is that everything that is paid in rent over the three years is credited off the agreed purchase amount if the option is exercised. Orlafield can't lose! Once Orlafield have control of the property they find someone who they convince that a 'rent to buy' scenario is a great opportunity for them to get into their own home. Not understanding the risks these buyers sign into lease and option agreements which potentially give them the right to buy the property. However, only if all goes according to plan. They pay weekly amounts well above the market rent for the property and are encouraged to make improvements to the property. What they don't understand is that Orlafield have structured the deal which ensures the tenants will lose everything they have contributed if they are unable to obtain finance at the end of the option period. They are evicted and Orlafield pocket maybe up to $200K of their hard earned money. Orlafield will pretend to offer all sorts of help, but it's what they are not telling the tenants and the seller that is so dangerous. I am aware that they have taken appliances from the properties they have gained control of, and replaced them with inferior products. Sometimes they will rip the owner off by telling them that the appliance had to be replaced and send them an invoice for the new inferior product. In one case they sold the air conditioner in the property to the tenants claiming that the owner was going to take it unless they wanted to buy it for an extra $700. When the tenants agreed to purchase it they said they would just build it into the purchase price at the end. (That way there is no paperwork to show what had really happened.) In truth the owner had no intention of removing the air conditioner and in fact had no idea that Orlafield had just sold his air conditioner to the tenants for an extra $700, pocketing it themselves. These are just SOME of the dishonest and deceitful games Caroline Edson, Peter Nicol (and their sidekick Bronwyn Bowes) they have played with Buyers and Sellers. It is only when the buyer and seller find each other, that they discover what has really been going on. This is the only reason why so many of Anything Real Estate's deals have ended in disaster lately. Their latest tack since they have been exposed is to make postings on blogs and property forums claiming to be the ones warning consumers about scam operators in the 'rent to buy' industry. This is simply an attempt to pretend that they are one of the wrappers who can be trusted. Have you ever seen a conman who admits being a conman? No, commonly they will point the finger at others and hope that the scrutiny and attention on them is diverted elsewhere. Well that's what you are seeing here with Caroline Edson, Peter Nicol and Anything Real Estate folks! Conmen pretending to be white knights! So if you are a buyer or a seller who is dealing with (or contemplating dealing with) Orlafield Pty Ltd, Anything Real Estate, Peter Nicol or Caroline Edson. Think again. If you have already signed up with them I suggest that you do some due diligence straight away and seek some legal advice. Start by finding the other party to the deal. Caroline or Peter will not want you to do this. They claim all sorts of things about the other party to avoid you having any contact with them. If you are the tenant, find a friendly real estate agent who will search their databases and put you in touch with the real owner. Caroline Edson has been known to blatantly lie about who the real owners of the properties are so don't believe a word she says. She is such a pathological liar, she even lies when she doesn't need to! Like all liars she never recalls what she told you previously and that's where you will catch her out. If you are a tenant, don't listen to what Caroline tells you about helping you to obtain finance. There is absolutely no incentive in the deal for Caroline to help you obtain finance at all. Remember whether you are able to get finance at the end or not, is irrelevant to them. They have worded the agreement in such a way that if you can't, they walk away with EVERYTHING you have contributed. Check with some lenders yourself. You will find as I did that most lenders these days are not interested in these rent to buy deals and most tenants are rejected when they come to apply for finance. If this happens Caroline Edson and Peter Nicol will walk away with all of your hard earned money. It has happened to a number of their victims already and as far as Edson and Nicol are concerned it is good business for them and tough luck for you! Protect yourselves and stay well away from these people or the companies they control. They are toxic! |
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| Top Article. I see that Caroline Edson is working very hard to hide the negative publicity that she and her husband are now receiving on the internet about their dirty little scam. She is now writing articles all over the net pretending to warn people about the scams, yet she is running the biggest rent to buy scam in Queensland herself. All of the warnings and advice she gives in these articles is the opposite of what she actually does. Too late now Caroline to hide your dirty deeds. Anyone who has seen the first hand evidence of what you have done to these people can see you are nothing more than a pathological liar who is now desperately trying to cover her tracks. Continue doing what you are doing and it will only get worse. Aussie Battlers are sick and tired of getting ripped off by people like you and Peter Nicol. |
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I am aware of these people who have been advertising in Mackay for some time now. I am in the real estate industry and I warn people to stay well clear of these schemes. I know that Caroline Edson has encouraged people to break leases on their property and then takes all the available cash they have when signing them into one of her dodgy deals. She even encourages them to default on what is owed to their previous landlord and to give this money to her. Her reasoning is that if they buy into one of her 'rent to buy' scams they will never be tenants again, so why should they care about having a bad tenant record on databases like TICA. This is the path that the crooked bitch leads these unsuspecting people down. They get a bad listing on TICA which prevents them from renting anything else when things go wrong and Caroline and Peter have these people right where they want them. Completely at their mercy to extort for everything they can get.
It's not the first time Edson and Nicol have sent consumers to the wall with their dodgy scams. I am aware of at least 4 deals that these people have been involved in where the other party has always ended up the loser. Peter Nicol and Caroline Edson would have everyone believe that it was all the fault of the other party but when this keeps happening one has to wonder why. I think these people are very dodgy. If you don't want to risk losing your hard earned money stay well away from them. They can't be trusted at all. |
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| They borrowed 20 grand on a sure fire short term can't fail venture, promising 30k back in a month, that was a year ago, lender got boo hoo and money gone. |
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I am a mortgage broker and I have friends who these mongrels took down as well for over $40, 000. I wish I had known them beforehand. They tried to sell them a property for $100, 000 more than it was worth and when our friends couldn't get finance they took all the money they had accumulated in rent credits and ran. Banks will not lend on properties that are overpriced, especially by $100, 000 unless you have significant equity. Caroline Edson and Peter Nicol make sure that you will fail to get finance, keep you in the deal as long as they can paying 3 times the amount of rent you should be. When they have pushed these poor people into a big black hole they take everything, evict them and run with their money. They are running one big scam, yet trying to convince everyone they are honest.
This behaviour is preditory, unethical, dishonest and just plain wrong. I think these people are about to find themselves held accountable for a lot of their misdemenours over a number of years. The word has now got out and they deserve everything the get in my view. As someone else has said on this forum...
http://www.ozripoff.com/report-view/1392-rent-to-own-mackay-scheme-or-scam
it's called Karma! |
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| WARNING TO ELDERLY HOME OWNERS IN MACKAY QLD. Caroline EDSON has been actively targeting elderly home owners in Mackay in an attempt to gain control of their properties to set up her dodgy Rent to Own deals. She has been using a lot of false names. If anyone representing Anything Real Estate (A.R.E.) or Orlafield Pty Ltd order them off our property immediately. They will be trying to gain control of your property by getting you to sign into an option agreement. They will then claim that they are the 'owners' of the property and sign some poor unsuspecting 'rent to own' tenant up to be ripped off. Stay well away. There is not just one or two stories that have surfaced about these people, but many. They are now claiming to be the victims of a smear campaign which is typical of people like this. DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE. Even though they may sound very convincing they will acting in their own best interests, not yours. |
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its always interesting to me reading any posts made by Caroline on several sites giving advice and so strongly defending the actions of vendor financers - if you were in fact doing the right thing then you really wouldn't be so concerned about what people are writing and wouldn't be so defensive about it all in my opinion. We have been SCAMMED by these people and are now in the process of doing something about it - as well as several other people we are currently aware of. We don't really expect to see anything back from them but the point is that we don't want them to be able to do it to other people anymore. Anyone who has had direct dealings with these people/business need to band together as the more complaints the Office of Fair Trading receive the better the result! Complaints need to be made to the ACCC as well. Our Lawyer is handling our personal side of things at the moment but I think it would be helpfull to get us all together for action against Peter and Caroline and 'all' of the alias's/business names they use and bring them down once and for all.
Also think it is interesting that the 'Cordato' Solicitors they are so linked with are in fact NSW based - anyone told A.R.E that Qld Law and real estate requirements are VERY different to Nsw ones? Makes me wonder if 'Cordato' Sols even know A.R.E use so much of their info, but if you look closely enough A.R.E don't even follow what the solicitors say is the way for the rent to buy situation is supposed to be run, and quite conveniently leave out some very vital info of the solicitors site... hmmm interesting - suggest people actually go the solicitors site separately and not off the link from A.R.E's site.
Another good point for anyone involved with A.R.E under a 'supposive' contract - you may want to look at it a little closer - does it mention anywhere that they are not the legal owners? have the legal owners actually signed the contract? is A.R.E signed as Power of Attorney and actually stated that?
To the people who have optioned their house to A.R.E does it state in the 'supposive' contract what their actions with property will actually be? what they intend to do with it? you may also be interested to know that the property still remains YOUR legal property regardless of what you may sign with them and that you would have full legal right to it at any given time - just check with any LEGITIMATE Solicitor who deals with Property contract law. The owner of the property we were 'buying' didn't even realise he was still the legal owner - could have been interesting if someone hurt themselves on the property and decided to sue!!
ANY real estate property sale transaction in Qld MUST be done on the proper Qld documents and through Solicitors. I guess unfortunately for A.R.E they were stupid enough to put exactly everything that we needed to incriminate them into written form - they have no way of covering themselves now - we even have in writing from them that we didn't need solicitors in the beginning stage and that the contract they sent through wasn't even going to be the contract used when it came time for that. DUHH!
Someone has mentioned that they are getting people to sign confidentiality contracts and try to settle out of courts - well, if the other contracts they do aren't worth the paper they are written on then I really would be questioning anything they get anyone to sign - Not a chance I will be signing of them. There is also mention about there being two sides to every story - well yes there is - One is the truth and one is lie and as the old saying goes - the Truth will always come out in the end and if so many people are having the same dealings with Peter and Caroline then anyone with even half a brain would have to be able to put two and two together and realise that there is some what of pattern emerging!
Anyone else who's had enough of Orlafield Pty Ltd Trading as A.R.E or Peter Nichol or Caroline Edson or Nichol Investments or CnP Investments Pty Ltd seeming to get away with what they are doing and are interested in making sure they are stopped for good please contact class acton at [email protected] because I am determined to serve some justice. |
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| Caroline Edson's latest attempts to hide the negative publicity have been to write stories on the forums alerting people to the possibility of scams. Considering Caroline Edson and her husband Peter Nicol are operating one of the biggest scams in Mackay right now, one would have to ask why she would be doing this. Two reasons really: 1) If you are a scammer, you certainly don't want to appear as one. Instead you want to portray that unfortunately you are the victim of a smear campaign. 2) Many people who search the terms like 'Caroline Edson scam' on google these days, will be taken to web pages just like this one. Of course that is not good for Caroline and Peter's business. So what they do is create articles with the same search words in them ( e.g. 'Caroline, Edson, scam') in the hope that this will get more hits and drop the negative articles down in the search rankings. (i.e. anywhere below the first pages of results). Caroline's latest attempts to grace the property forums with her wisdom are to the trained eye, feeble attempts to portray herself as a rent to own guru. The content of her articles has been simply parroted from listening to others and passed off as her own. Meanwhile she remains involved in one of the biggest scams Mackay has seen in recent times. BUYER BEWARE of 'ANYTHING REAL ESTATE' 'Caroline EDSON' and 'Peter NICOL'. ( I know that you watch these pages closely Caroline and Peter. Just understand that two can play your game.) |
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| It has been uncovered that one of the ways Caroline Edson and Peter Nicol have been ripping off both buyers and sellers is this: They gain control of properties that are furnished. The furnishings are owned by the owner of the house. Caroline and Peter then separately sell the furniture to the buyers tenants. The owners have no idea that they have done this. THIS IS FRAUD!!! Of course they never give receipts for the payments made so that it can't be proved that they received any money for the furniture. If they are challenged they lie about it. Stay away from these people. They are scam artists of the highest order! |
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| Lots more interesting info going up about this mob on another site. Check it out. http://www.ozripoff.com/report-view/1392-rent-to-own-mackay-scheme-or-scam It seems that they have far too many skeletons in their closet. Stay well away from them is my advice! |
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If you are interested in Orlafield Pty Ltd T/A ANYTHING REAL ESTATE (A.R.E.) make sure you check out the other site that Kate has highlighted above. The directors, Caroline Edson, Peter Nicol are toxic. A business associate of theirs by the name of Bert Pulman is also heavily involved in their games to intimidate and threaten their victims of their 'rent to own' scams now that they have been caught out and widely exposed. Nothing a crook hates more than to be identified as one!
It has also come to light that there are many creditors chasing Nicol and Edson for payment of money owed. Hopefully they will soon be bankrupted and unable to be the directors of any companies. If ASIC and the OFT are unable to close companies like this down, the public have no other option than to use the internet to warn consumers about them. Public exposure of their dirty deeds is just one way that the public can be protected from these scum. |
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| My husband and I lost everything going into rent buy with anything real estate. We had to start all over again. Which isn't easy in mackay. Please don't make our mistake. Thanks |
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| Looks like they are up to their old tricks. Someone called Sue is advertising rent to own deals in Mackay. This is a known alias for Caroline Edson. The phone number to contact is 0487 404 068. Don't get caught out in this scam. Although they have removed their website as a result of all the negative publicity, my eyes and ears tell me that they are still alive, and actively looking for new victims to finance themselves out of a real financial mess they have got themselves into trying to live the high life on everyone else's money. |
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These rogues are still advertising their dodgy Rent To Own deals. However they have taken their own website down and are advertising on other sites under false names. Sue is one name that Caroline Edson is currently using. Phone numbers that her and NICOL use are:
0437 490 066
0402 906 897
0412 073 063
0487 404 068 |
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It is sad to here that these people are scamming desperate people/families that only want a roof over their heads and to live the so-called aussie dream to own their own home. I am currently looking for a home to buy and WAS looking to rent to buy and sadly to say I was also trying to contact a ":Sue". Thank you to all of you for opening my eyes to this Caroline and her scamm. My partner and I have 7 kids between us and 2 adopted so we could not financially bounce back from this type of scam.
Thank you for sharing your stories and information. |
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| Karma - their time is coming. Word around town is that they have left Mackay due to financial probs. Yeah well too many people are finding out about them now. What about all the people still paying them money???? Watch out Victorians, she is probably going to start on you next. People should be warned. Too many nice honest, battlers being hurt, when all they want is to own their own home. |
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| Anyone know the whereabouts of this scanner, supposedly peddling here dirty little deals in Victoria.????? |
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| Hi there, I'd like to talk to people in person who've been a victim of the rent to buy scams. Please email me on [email protected] to talk about it, cheers. |
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I too was bitten buy there rent try buy
lucky got out when i did but did lots $40 thousand out of it but i walk away with no dept but there are other people who have probably been taken in like we were so everyone please be aware and take care these people sucker you in and and you could loose everything they are nothing but ripoff artist and suck people like leeches don't get caught Their are sign around Mackay QLD i dont know if that is them but what ever you you do don't ring it is p0roberly them |
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