Exposing the housing heist that’s scamming seniors (Marketplace)

♪ We return to the case with new details in a scam that hits home. Two detectives arrive at my door. They said, "Well, you've been scammed for your house." Victims burdened with mortgages they never wanted. How much is that mortgage? It's at least $500,000. -How much is the interest rate? -25 percent. And bills that could cost them everything. This was our foreclosure notice. They feel tied and cheated. How do you pay for that? You don't pay, that's the problem. The police intervene, but is it enough? The Ontario government must intervene. Our effort to get answers is making a difference.

What was the first sign that you had been scammed? There was a show at Marketplace. And that sounds a lot like what just happened to me. This is your Market. Anas Ayyoub, in his early 20s, is living a good life. Boasting on social media about driving a luxurious Lamborghini, he describes his lavish lifestyle as a rags-to-riches story. But many Canadians accuse Ayyoub of enriching himself by defrauding them. And it is right here, on this street, where the police confiscated that precious Lamborghini. Investigators tow his car and execute a search warrant. The victims allege that Ayyoub is part of a scheme that induced them to obtain mortgages or renovations they could not afford. -You can press up. -Alright.

People like Sherri Clarke, who didn't realize it until it was too late. What was the first indication that he had been scammed? There was a Marketplace TV show. These were people who would go to

seniors

' homes and offer all these free renovations and make them sign a bunch of papers and then turn around and scam them out of their homes. And you thought, "That sounds a lot like..." And that sounds a lot like what just happened to me. And that's when I called the police. Let's take a look at the bathroom. Sherri lives with multiple sclerosis.

She has a very limited income. So the renovations to make her home accessible and safe have previously been paid for by a charity. A call to offer more free work seemed normal. They would have told me that she had the right to free renovations to my home. There were two people who did the painting. They also put in the pot lights...which was all free. -Or so they said. -That's what they said. But the work was not free. The renovations ended up costing Sherri more than $192,000. So, Sherri, one thing that stands out to me is that this is nice and wide, and for someone who uses a wheelchair, it makes it easier for you. -Yeah.

So this house is really built for you: to live your life in it? -Yeah. Sherri says many of the things she was accused of never came to fruition and what was done was not helpful. Tell me what the contractors did here. They tore out my old kitchen, all the top and bottom cabinets, and put in a new countertop. MMM. What about the counter? He doesn't have a lip. My old counter had an edge that I could grab and crawl over. Then the contractors came in...did this work and they took away some of its accessibility? -Yeah.

Sherri's reindeer were eventually paid for with a mortgage on her property. Sherri signed, but she says she was told she would never have to pay. If her story sounds familiar, it's because she has a similar story to the victims we've met before. Our original investigation into this plan began many months ago in Bowmanville, Ontario... -Hello, how are you? -Hello how are you? -Happens. - Thank you. ...with Melissa Irons and Jeff Wagenaar. Oh, that was a good one. They say Jeff's stepfather, Karl Hoffmann, 79, is an easy target after a brain aneurysm years ago robbed him of his ability to make simple decisions.

Karl is a very simple man. He just sits at home, watches TV. He doesn't go out much. But he runs the risk of having his house taken away from him. Discovering that equipment had been installed throughout Karl's home was a red flag. So here's a Nest thermostat that was installed. Does Karl know how to use it? Absolutely not. He has to call me every time to adjust the temperatures. Alright. Show me what else. Well, we have a smart smoke detector from Google. Alright. The money for all this came from long-term contracts and liens on his property.

Which means his house was being used as collateral. Karl has water softeners upon water softeners. But Melissa says Karl had no idea. And what is this? A surge protector, I think, that's what they call it. - A surge protector? - Yes. Why would you need a surge protector? I have no idea. Okay, what did you do here? -So they replaced the toilet. -Mm-hmm. They only realized something was wrong after finding workers renovating Karl's bathroom. He was furious. Scared for him, worried. Wondering who these strangers were and how they got into his house. She thought they were here to use the bathroom, not to renovate it.

They say Karl didn't want the renovation and he couldn't afford it. To make matters worse, it was of poor quality. They returned three times to fix a leak. They couldn't fix the leak so I had to step in and fix the problem myself. Karl's family believes it is part of an elaborate scam designed to take away his home after discovering that Karl had taken out a $130,000 mortgage with payments greater than his limited income and an interest rate set at 25 percent. Have you ever heard of a 25 percent mortgage? Absolutely no, no. Karl is unable to pay, leading to a dramatic event.

This was our foreclosure notice that we gave to Karl. We had to get a lawyer involved to quickly put a stop to this matter so we can try to resolve everything so I don't lose everything. This is all he has, all he has ever had. To understand the multi-layer scheme... -Hi, Greg. -Hi David. -How are you? -Nice to meet you. You too. Forward. ...we're with Karl's attorney, Greg Weedon. They would simply sell him things he didn't need. He simply became an elaborate scam. Basically, they take out these loans. They apply for renewals and loans at the same time.

Remember that surge protector? The documents show that the people who created the lien are the same people behind the mortgage. They are converting these liens. The same people show up and say, "We can help you consolidate his debt and we can help you reduce these monthly payments to one payment and he can get out of this debt with a mortgage." " Something Karl's family says he didn't sign. And if he did, they say he didn't understand it. Greg says he would never have let Karl sign a mortgage with 25 percent interest. The interest rate is astronomical. We have never seen such a high interest rate.

Do you have any chance of being able to pay that? No no. How do you produce a mortgage like this? In this case, it was through a mortgage broker and a lawyer, who are supposed to look out for their best interests. Why didn't anyone stop him? That's what we're looking to find out... in this house in Toronto. -Hello. -Hello David. -Nice to meet you. Another knock on the door provoked a similar story. Danila Lim, 88, is blind. Her son, a retired Canadian soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder, also lives here. William fights to save the house. Then someone came to the house and informed my brother that there was a lien on the house.

My brother didn't really understand what a lien meant, but this person intimidated him. When we heard the story, it was a total shock. There was a lot of anger, thinking how can people take advantage of two people who are... One is blind, visually impaired, one is elderly, one is disabled. My brother is also disabled. And like Karl, the renovators also appeared. Any room these renovators touched, they destroyed. The work is surprisingly unprofessional. Those huge gaps that remain at the top, the mosaic that is incomplete. Show me some of the other things. Well, I mean, on the one hand, the way they installed an oven, that's their finished product. - That?

That's how they decided it should stay. Do they only put laminate and cardboard? - That's how it is. - To level it? To level... to level... -But the ovens have... -They have feet. I guess they didn't know they had feet they could level it with, I guess. And the ground is crumbling. Oh yeah. Check it out. This is the laminate and you can see the tile floor underneath. Yes, there was a tile floor then. A professionally done tile floor. It had a couple of broken tiles. And their solution to fixing two broken tiles was to cover them with the cheapest laminate they could find.

So why didn't the family notice sooner? Well, this was happening in the middle of the COVID pandemic and Christina is a nurse. But you didn't want to make your mom sick. Correct. I mean, they were safe in her house. At least that's what I thought they were. -They were safe from COVID. -They were safe from COVID. Not knowing that there would be these predators that would knock on your door. There is now a mortgage on this house. How much is that mortgage? Right now it's at least $500,000. It's huge. It's huge and... you know, I feel like they've been victimized.

Um... and... you know, it made you feel like... there's that feeling of guilt... of myself saying, "Well, where was I to protect them? Or where were we to protect them?" "Because all year long they basically suffered in silence. We are learning that the alleged scam has victims across Ontario. From St. Catharines to Peterborough...Barrie, Collingwood...Mississauga and more. Lured after a knock on the door. To try to unravel who is behind this, we are knocking on those same doors. I'm David from CBC Marketplace. Many are now suing. Some acknowledge having signed documents, but say that if they signed, they did not understand.

Did you want to have a $230,000 mortgage? -No. -How much is the interest rate? 25 percent. Do you feel like you've been taken advantage of? Yes, these people are choosing people... older people. You know, people...vulnerable people. -Vulnerable people? -Yeah. -That's what... -Do you feel attacked? Yes. I'm probably going to lose the rest of the house now. He said he was going to get all this money back, that it wouldn't cost me anything, but... What they said is that I thought they were my friends. Do you still think they are your friends? No no. They told me the line and...

I believed it. I have been cheated. Are you worried about losing your home? Yes I am. I really am. I have to stay alive and fight this. I'm 70 years old and I shouldn't be going through this. Bev Forrest reveals we're not the only ones following the plan. How did you know you had fallen for this? Two detectives came to my door. They said, "Well, you've been scammed for your house." -Did the police tell you that? -Yeah. Until the police came and told you... -I had no idea. -Wow. Then I started to cry. As we've been investigating... so have the police.

Moving on to the renovations. Poor quality. Constables Lisa Cruz and Erin Fraser are with the Ontario Provincial Police. -Hello, I'm David. -Hello David, I'm Lisa Cruz. -Lisa. -Erin Fraser. We now collaborate with police agencies across Ontario. Erin and I work for the Serious Fraud Office. We are a specialized unit within the OPP that investigates major fraud cases. How elaborate is this scam? It is very elaborate. There are multiple levels and we have multiple victims throughout the province. These scammers adapt it as they go, so it's constantly changing. And as we looked into it, we found different variations.

And I think what might be happening is that people may not even know that they're a victim yet. As police continue their investigation, we find the biggest consequence yet. All I know is that this is massive elder abuse. Has the OPP failed here? The fact that he was able to leave the country with all of these victims' funds is simply a complete failure. Our search for answers continues. This is your Market. We're back on the case, reviewing our investigation into what some call a "loan to own scam." Alleged victims across Ontario, homeowners like Karl allegedly tricked into signing contracts and loans.

He simply believes that everyone who comes to the door is there to do him a favor. It is a complex scheme that leads to a mortgage on their house with interest rates that they say they cannot pay. I was devastated. Actually, she didn't realize that all these things were happening in front of her. There are several companies that provide services and knock on doors and multiple lenders on mortgage documents. But everyone we met in our original research has at least one lender in common: Canada's Choice Investments. Marlene Hamilton is among them. I miss that. I know.

She spent more than 40 years in this Port Hope home. This was your life and dad's. Missing. Lisa Amos is his daughter. -So that's home. -Yes, that is my house. That was my house. It is the home that has been taken from you. From me, from my mom. I'm angry, angry, upset, like...words can't describe how I feel right now. Unable to make her mortgage payments, Marlene lost her house last fall. ItThe only thing he remembers is people entering and leaving the house. -Are people coming to renew? -Yeah. And "Sign this, sign this." Although Lisa says her mom doesn't know how to read.

Did she know there was a mortgage on her house? No. All I know is that this is massive elder abuse. Documents show that Marlene's mortgage was placed through this brokerage in Brampton, Ontario. Karl and Danila did it too. But the front office has since severed ties with this franchise. Now the regulator is proposing fines and revoking the brokerage's license. But the brokerage, in an email she sent us, says they are not to blame, arguing that they too are victims of what they call predatory credit fraud, and they say their sympathies now lie with the clients. For most mortgage transactions, there is an attorney who represents the borrower's interests.

In Karl's case, the documents say the lawyer was Anant Jain. In our original investigation, we visited his office, but he was not there. He has been named in multiple lawsuits, including Danila's. In those cases, Jain denies wrongdoing and says his clients understood the documents and that he acted with diligence and good faith. But a lot has happened since then. The Law Society, which regulates lawyers in Ontario, suspended Anant Jain's license while he investigates, saying: "There is a serious risk of harm to the public." Jain denies doing anything wrong and says he is cooperating with the investigation.

But what about the man in the center? Anas Ayyoub, sole director of Choice Investments of Canada. We contacted him earlier this year. Hello, Mr. Ayyoub. I'm David Common from CBC Marketplace. It's not the right time to call me. I can not talk now. Can you... call my lawyer? Do you have his number? I do, but we're trying to get to the bottom of why so many of his clients say they have mortgages that... Oh, well, he just walked away and hung up. Through his attorney, he denied all allegations and said his company has no connection to any door-to-door scheme.

He says the mortgages were signed voluntarily and everything was in order. It turns out that when we called Anas Ayyoub, he was financing new reindeer, like the ones at Sherri Clarke's house, but this time under a different company name: Alternative Finance Group. And attorney Greg Weedon? Well, he knows everything. Its name changed to Alternative Finance Group. Same guy? Same type as Canada's Choice Capital. -Just a new name. -New name. Sherri's mortgage is not through Alternative Finance Group, but the renos she was charged were paid with one, using a legal tool to file a financial claim on her property called a Notice of Security Interest.

And the Ontario government should step in and get rid of the security interest notice. Just get rid of them completely. They are completely useless. They are only used for these types of situations, such as these fraudulent schemes. There is no legitimate reason for them to exist today. So just erase them from the books? Get them off the books and you will definitely freeze any further fraud in terms of these title liens that are being attached to mortgages. Earlier this fall, the Ontario government announced a process on how to reduce misuse of the tool. As for Anas Ayyoub, although police confiscated his Lambo and searched his house, he has not been charged.

In fact, Greg tells us...that he's not even here. As far as we know, he has fled the country. -Isn't he in Canada? -No. Has the OPP failed here? The fact that he was able to leave the country with all of these victims' funds, at the end of the day, is just a complete failure. We asked the OPP about Anas Ayyoub, but they say they cannot talk about the ongoing criminal investigation of him. They add that they continue to provide support to victims and raise awareness to prevent further victimization. We contacted Anas Ayyoub again for this story, and he says that he remains a Canadian resident and that he has always conducted his business legally.

This is the guy who runs Alternative Finance Group. -Oh really? -Yeah. -Well. -He is living the good life. Apparently, yes. Out of scams like the one that happened to me. What should happen to the people who did this to you? Oh, go to jail.