Checkmate

On August 2nd, an e-mail was received from Sy, the Property Administrative Assistant, at the “old folks home” in Waikiki:

I am trying to help to figure this out. I am not blaming this on you or anyone else. It looks the agreement was for November and December 2018 rent was supposed to be waived. It looks like November was waived but December wasn't. I will get in touch with the accounting department to resolve the issue.

Clearly, the scammers never had an exit strategy in the case of a skeptical victim. The notion that there was an accounting error dating to December of last year is ludicrous. The only letter and statements about the delinquent January rent was legitimate (refer to “Ides of March” in Notes for details about the beginnings of the farce). Anyway, four months of bullshit and now a “wing it” solution. A reply was sent requesting a copy of the e-mail from the accounting department in order to attain “peace of mind.”

Another curious observation was that the e-mail from Sy was also CCed to Luana, resident manager at the “old folks home” in Makiki (previous mausoleum tenure). The housing specialist had chatted with the latter, but there was no reason for further involvement. That begs the question, how many people are really involved in the scam?

The ambivalence of the management of the main office of Locations is most likely deliberate. The communications barricade (read: “firewall”) is intended to maintain “plausible deniability” in the event of an incident spirals out of control.

An encounter with the friendly tenant from the other building in the “old folks home” this morning proved informative. The current situation was discussed with him, He said that the corruption has been going on for years. Apparently, it’s “in the DNA” of the entire Locations operations. Years ago, the firm was known as Prudential® Hawai’i. An embezzlement scandal forced the name change.

As far as the “old folks home” in Waikiki is concerned, the situation with Randi and Sy is “old hat.” It’s been going on for years. Randi is the epitome of slime. The friendly tenant cited the latest incident in which other tenants had notified Randi that one of their friends had not been seen for days. Knocking on the door or phone calls proved futile. Randi did not check on the tenant for several more days. The tenant was discovered lying on the floor.

The friendly tenant also mentioned several cases of accounting fraud perpetrated by Randi. Obviously, nothing has been done to curb the nefarious activity. So, the only recourse is to move out as soon as possible.