Thread by @LVREChronicles

If you know me even a little bit you know that I experienced some wild things at my old job. Never anticipated anything unbelievable to occur at the new one but nonetheless here we are. Impossible kicked down the door. Gather 'round kids and I'll tell you about it. A thread...

My wife befriended a fellow Chinese woman on WeChat. Think, Facebook but for cool people. The Mrs., being head lead generator of our new business, immediately paid attention when the woman from Rancho Cucamonga mentioned that her and her husband were soon moving to #Vegas.

After getting to know each other a bit, the woman, who I'll call Linda, informed us that they had recently sold their house and were moving to Vegas in a couple weeks. They wanted to find an apartment to rent only for as long as it took to buy a new house in Vegas.

Linda mentioned that they were having a difficult time finding an apartment that would only require a month or 2 lease requirement. That wasn't a weekly rental type dump, anyway. Naturally I was keen to help, and soon had many phone conversations with Linda's husband John.

I let John know that I could help them find a nice furnished apartment that would only require a 2 month lease. I emailed to them the ones I could find but before we knew it, they were going to arrive in less than a week and we still hadn't secured their living arrangements.

It was getting to be a bit of a time crunch, as my new clients had some particular wants that severely limited their options. But we found the perfect place, in the nick of time. It was inside the Meridian at Flamingo & Koval. I of course was very familiar with it.

It had a nice pool and gym, which they really wanted, and the units are nicely furnished and only required 3 months commitment. It was perfect. Except their offices are closed on the weekends and John & Linda were set to arrive on Saturday night.

And it was already Wednesday. They weren't keen on either waiting through the weekend to drive here as their accommodations in CA were expiring, and they didn't want to purchase a hotel for 2 nights after arriving here. So being customer centric, I boldly proposed a solution...

I said I had no problems running down to the office on Friday and picking up their keys. Then I could just meet them as soon as they arrived in town so they could immediately go to their apartment. All they would need to do is make sure the office received their move in monies.

Obviously, the property management company wasn't going to release the keys to me until their move in costs had been paid in full, via certified funds. So I suggested John & Linda overnight a check to the Property Mgr. so I could grab the keys on Friday. That was my idea.

Or, I went on, if they felt more comfortable, they could overnight the check to my office and I would personally deliver it to the Property Mgmt co. Either way, it didn't matter to me. But Linda had another idea. "Why don't we just Zelle the money to you?" she said.

It meant a lot that they trusted me this much already. Zelle, if you don't know is an easy way to wire money from one person to another, like Venmo, but through your bank. You just register your phone number with your bank and Zelle and people can send you money just like that..

This way, Linda reasoned, I'd be sure to get it in time and they could save on the shipping costs. Made sense to me. But literally a week earlier I would've replied, "What's Zelle?" Because literally a week before, I had just used it for the first time...

I had sent a check in the mail to pay for my son's Chinese summer school program that got returned to sender for some reason. The schools director suggested I just pay via Zelle because it was quick and easy. So I did that. And it was quick and easy.

So Linda suggested Zelle I said that's fine and after she confirmed I expected to receive the funds in a matter of minutes. All $3380 of them, to be exact. But many minutes passed and I'd received nothing. John called, I told him that I had not received anything, because I hadn't

They called their bank, a different one than mine, and said because the funds were being sent to a different bank, for the first time, it can actually take 1-3 days to arrive at the recipient's bank. But they said it would probably only be 24hrs. So we waited until the next day.

The next day arrived and still no money had appeared in my account. I didn't even have a pending transaction or anything. I called my bank, gave them the confirmation number that John & Linda had received from Zelle and my bank had no record of it. No record of anything at all.

After 48 hours it was Friday and I'd still received nothing. And it was a really awkward and terrible situation. I'd never even met these people and you just know it's in the back of their mind that I received the money and was just saying that I hadn't.

The said repeatedly that they believed me but who knows right. That's a large sum of money. People could get ideas. However, I have a duty to care for my clients money. And besides that, integrity is one of my strongest traits. I just would never do that.

My wife suggested we print out our bank statements to prove that we never received the money. But that doesn't prove anything.

It was Saturday morning. John & Linda were set to depart Rancho Cucamonga when they solved mystery. And they called me, very upset, with the news...

Turns out that whomever they initially spoke to at their bank was right. It did only take 24hrs for the recipient to get the money. The problem, was that it wasn't me. Linda had put in the wrong phone number, switching the last 2 digits, and sent $3380 to the wrong person. OMG.

I was devastated. I felt just absolutely awful about it. I was relieved in the sense that at least they knew that I hadn't stolen it. So, I didn't feel guilty, just bad. John & Linda were very angry about it. And John angry with Linda. She's an older lady, she just made a mistake

They didn't ultimately arrive until Monday. And once they arrived they had to return to their bank and withdraw another $3380 in order that they could still get their apartment. It was just bad times all around. This was two weeks ago.

Imagine you're sitting on your couch eating some bullshit and you get a text from Zelle that $3380 has just been deposited into your account. Times are hard for people right now. Maybe you're out of work. Behind on your mortgage. What would you do?

Move into their apartment they did. And they liked it, which was a small victory. The filed claims with their bank and with Zelle, who both basically informed them that they were shit out of luck. I said relax a bit, get settled, when you're ready to go house shopping to call me.

John called me the next day, they didn't want to be in the apartment any longer than necessary. So I came over the following day and did a buyers consultation. I was already very familiar with what they wanted, and selected many homes I thought they'd like.

They had already picked out a bunch they liked too so we devised a plan to go house hunting. They were already pre approved so there was nothing stopping them.

I told them that day that it likely wasn't much, but that I would do everything in my power to get that money back. Up to and including finding out where these people lived and knocking on their door. I don't give a fuck.

We had one thing already, the phone number. Which John, who can be a bit of a hot head, had already called 3 times. He didn't get an answer and preceeded to leave some, according to Linda, pretty nasty voicemails threatening to call the cops and the FBI, In vain no doubt.

One thing I asked them that day, was in the event I can convince someone go give the money back, would they be willing to offer an award? They said certainly, and we agreed that 10% would be fair. I suggested to leave the person alone, and let me try sane carrot & stick action.

You catch more flies with honey anyway. We decided to pay for a reverse phone search and ended up uncovering a name and an address. A latin name and a very common one at that. Oscar was his first name, I won't reveal his last.

The address seemed promising but it was of little use bc it was a mobile home park. And it didn't indicate a space number. So it's basically worthless. You've got a 1 in 300 chance or so. No shot. A search of all 300 on county assessors page revealed no owners w/ same last name.

This could mean he was renting. Or it could mean the reverse phone search was bullshit. I looked on Facebook a lot, and there's only 50 or so with a matching name in the Vegas area. I looked at as many pages as I could to find someone who mentioned the money. No dice.

I knew I'd contact the number myself eventually but wanted as much intel as possible before doing so. But the guy purportedly lives in a trailer park. It's been a week. Surely the money is long gone by now. It's a fools errand.

Instead of calling, I elected to text first. The sole mission from the beginning was to get him talking. Just confirm that there was indeed someone on the other end of the line. So, I had a couch for sale myself, put an ad on Craigslist. So decided to text them about a couch.

Anytime you have something for sale on Craigslist people will text you, "hey you still have that couch?". So that's what I did. With the hope that they'd reply that I had the wrong number. From there, my plan was to just get them talking.

You can read the initial texts for yourself.

It continues that if I could speak to them on the phone for a minute that I would gladly explain it to them. But they didn't reply to that. So u didn't reply either, for two days. But just from that, those texts right there, I had a hunch that this was a female.

I shared my progress with John along with my feeling that this was a female. He asked why I thought that. It was 2 things actually. It was the proper English. No slang or anything close. And the phrase, "yeah I do mind". That screamed female to me. That was my hunch.

I actually liked my chances more if it's a female....So I waited two days and texted again, this time taking a more serious tone. Like a mobster might approach it. "I think you have something that belongs to me and I'd like to get it back. Type things.

Nothing threatening per se, but this is a large sum of money that somebody is going to want back. That some people, not saying me, might be willing to do some crazy things to recover. This was my tone, now. They finally replied with something I didn't believe. More on that later.

About 2 hours later I was working. Rideshare, actually, and my phone rang. It was a number I didn't know, despite this, and the fact I had a passenger and my bluetooth was connected, I answered it. It was a man, who was very very angry...

"WHY ARE YOU CALLING AND HARRASING AND THREATENING MY DAUGHTER?? IF YOU CONTINUE TO DO THIS I AM COMING TO FIND YOU AND WILL PUT A STOP TO IT...." 😮😮😮😮

He continued before I could say a word..."WE REPORTED THAT MONEY TO THE BANK THE DAY WE RECEIVED IT AND THE BANK IS HANDLING IT SO DON'T BOTHER MY DAUGHTER AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

Holy.Shit.

I needed to calm him down. "Sir, first of all thank you so much for calling me. I had no idea that the owner of that phone was a child, I have no way of know that. And I'm sure you can appreciate the severity of this situation."

"I can," he replied. More relaxed now.

"Are you Oscar?"
"Yes I am and who are you?"
"My name is Andy and I am a REALTOR in Las Vegas. This money belongs to my clients and I am only trying to help them. I apologize if I upset you or your daughter, that was not my intention."
"You only talk to me about ok."
"Of course."

"Obviously you're protecting your daughter and I can sincerely appreciate that. I am a father as well. I will only talk to you from now on."
"Ok good. As I said, we notified the bank immediately, they're supposed to be handling it. I don't know anything else "

"You spoke w/ your bank?"
"Yes. We filed a claim. I can text you the claim number after we're done."
"That would be great, thank you for doing the right thing."
"That money does not belong to us, it is yours so we cannot keep it. We have to give it back."
"That's incredible sir."

"Oscar, I spoke with my clients before about offering you a reward if you returned the money so we would like to do that."
"No I don't want anything from you or anyone. It's the right thing to do."
"We really insist, let us give you something for your trouble."

He said no again.

We said our goodbyes, without really knowing if or when the banks would figure it out and reverse the money or not. But Oscar, true to his word, texted me his claim confirmation number.

I can only imagine what my passenger was thinking during this entire conversation lol.

But in all honesty, the more I thought about it, I got a little choked up about ut. Here's a guy, a man, a father, who's doing the right thing. Who's protecting his daughter, who's teaching her about right and wrong. Who's a breacon of light in this nasty and shit infested world.

Then I remembered something. I immediately called John and said, DON'T FUCKING CALL THAT NUMBER ANYMORE OK?? NO CALLS NO TEXTS NO NOTHING!!" This might actually work out.

This was right about the time that I announced here that something miraculous was about to happen. I believed Oscar. I didn't just WANT to believe him. I actually believed him. Even when we called the bank and they said they couldn't help with the claim number.

I believed just because. I believed him even after an entire week passed, then through the holiday weekend. I kept in contact with Oscar periodically. He eventually said that if the money wasn't reversed we could meet him at the bank and he'd give it to my clients.

But then it happened, tonight, just a couple hours ago. John called, giddy, and told me the news that the money was back in his account. Every penny of it. Strangely, I wasn't surprised. I believed in Oscar. I'd let Oscar babysit my child.

Throughout this ordeal I had an idea about what we should do if the money was returned. And John and Linda agreed. After I heard the news I called Oscar to tell him personally and to thank him again. And also to run my ides by him in order to get his blessing, and he said ok.

In the meantime, I really feel like the @reviewjournal should do a piece about this story and this upstanding member of our community. At one point Oscar said, "I'm just a landscaper." "No," I replied, "you're a saint."

Oscar, the saint landscaper, lives in a mobile home park on the east side, works on the west side. Raising 3 children, surely could have used the money. But he returned it. For no other reason than. "It's the right thing to do "

I hope to meet Oscar someday. And shake his hand and buy him a cerveza. In my business we need to know good landscapers, and he mentioned he might seek my help in buying a home some time soon. I'd help Oscar with *anything* he needed help with. And vote for him for Mayor.

As I type this John & Linda are sending some money to Oscar's daughter via Zelle. They have her phone number. I hope she puts it in her college fund. At my urging they're adding the comment, "This time it's not a mistake."

The End.

Bless Oscar & Family. You're the man.

Oh, I almost forgot. John & Linda opened escrow on their new house yesterday and we plan to close before their 2 months is up at the apartment. Then John and I will duke it out to see who gets the honor of buying the celebratory feast. Cheers everyone. Do the right thing.