Swindled
| October 31, 2023Yona, I was under the impression that you’d paid the deposit but the funds do not appear to have come in yet. Can you call me please…
As told to Rivka Streicher by Yona Friedman
The officer tapped on the keyboard, cracked his knuckles. Finally, he looked up at me.
“The amount involved here is above my jurisdiction,” he said. “This will need to make its way up to the top.”
“What should I do?” I asked desperately.
“Just wait,” he said blithely.
I sat there on a hard plastic chair in the police station, swallowing fast, eyes darting to and fro. I sighed deeply, over and over again, wondering if I could put any hope in the police, if I could trust anyone again….
An hour earlier: You’ve got mail, comes the phone notification. I scroll through the emails. The top one’s from my lawyer, Shelly. Five weeks earlier, she’d helped me sign a contract to buy a family home, the house of my dreams for our family of nine. I’d paid the hefty deposit and was raring to move forward.
Yona, I was under the impression that you’d paid the deposit but the funds do not appear to have come in yet. Can you call me please…
What? I’d paid over a month ago. A quick call would set the record straight.
I called Shelly. “The funds were deposited,” I said emphatically. “I used the account details in the second email you sent me. I even printed them out and gave them to the bank teller.”
Silence.
I continued babbling. “You know what I’m talking about, right? You sent me a second email with the updated account details, telling me to disregard the details you’d previously sent.”
“What time did you get that email?” Shelly asked, something weird in her voice.
I checked the thread. “It was 6:47 a.m.,” I replied.
“Yona,” she said carefully, “I never work so early. I’m sorry, but I didn’t send that second email with new account details.”
Oops! We could not locate your form.