Please help - stranded and scammed

Denver 7 Coverage | Denver 7 Video

Update 8/20/23:

CBS News Coverage

CBS Article.

Current Situation

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We are still waiting on the funds from GoFund Me, and hoping that it can at least help us get into a hotel. If you know any landlords or connections in Colorado, that'd help wonderfully. We just need a landlord that will work with us on payments for the deposits, as we can pay some towards the first month's rent.

Have them contact me at my email: [email redacted].

Initial Story 8/13/2023

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Hello, my name is Phillip and we moved from Las Vegas to Colorado to our “new home”, and everything seemed to go great. We had the application, acs, and paid everything (deposit, first and last month's rent), even setup utilities and internet.

But, it turns out, today another person comes and says she too has a lease. I called the real estate company and they confirmed the realtor, leasing agent, and owners are not with them, and are not real.

That private landlord claimed to be Russell Thompson with Invitation Homes, who was renting the home for $1,900 a month.

He sent us "proof" on Invitation Homes letterhead showing he was leasing the place for his father, Charles Thompson. He claimed he wanted to privately lease the property to keep the rent at a reasonable rate, rather than going through the Invitation Homes website.

By the time we were done, we paid them a total of $5,700 to move in.

We packed up, moved out here, got here, he gave us the code to get in and movers unloaded everything, and we're here. And three days later, another lady by the name of April shows up.

Suffice it to say, after speaking to Paul at invitation homes, the real estate agent, and everyone involved, even the letter is fake.

I cashed out my 401k to pay for the move out from Las Vegas and fund the move to Colorado, and now I have barely anything left.

Invitation Homes say they are going to send a sheriff out to put a 10-day quit notice on the door before doing the eviction. It gives us only a little time to raise at least some funds to stay in a hotel. I called the bank to see if they can refund the almost 6000 USD we paid to Russel and Charles, but the bank said it could take 120 days to refund all that if they will at all.

We have reached out to several services, VOA, SVVF, and Human Services, all of them, but there's not much they can do in a situation like this. If we are on the street, they can help, but not while we are in this situation. So, every little bit helps!

We are a family of four (youngest of 17) who moved our entire lives out here to Colorado and now are essentially homeless.

The money raised here will allow us to at least find a place, even if it’s a hotel. We just have to have a place to live. I have all the documentation and the police and invitation homes investigations team is involved. Suffice it to say…it is not good.

Thank you for your support.