Palm Springs rental scam trial gets underway

A Palm Springs man testified today that two men who rentedhis house to vacationers wrote him checks that consistently bounced and toldrenters to wire funds to their accounts, then canceled their reservations.

The testimony came at a preliminary hearing for Palm Springs residentsMichael Maloney, 52, and Matthew Wehling, 47, who are accused of scamming atleast 15 vacation home renters out of more than $50,000. They are each chargedwith 15 embezzlement counts.

Palm Springs resident Kevin Corcoran testified that Wehling and Maloney,who were friends, rented out his house from January to May 2010. They senthim checks from two bank accounts under Wehling’s name, and they all bounced,Corcoran said.

“The mantra in (our) email communication was, `Hold on, the money willbe deposited very soon,”‘ he said.

Corcoran said he discovered that renters were told to wire funds toaccounts and were then told their reservation was canceled or they’d have torent at another property. He said as far as he remembered, he was never paidfor rental transactions done by Wehling and Maloney, and they kept bookingrenters for his house after he told them to stop.

“The checks started to bounce and I knew something was wrong,” he said.

Eventually, he went to the police and the District Attorney’s Office. Hesaid he did an Internet search on Maloney and found he was a convicted felonwith a “laundry list” of other cases.

“I was stunned,” he said.

He said he lost about $20,000.

Palm Springs police Sgt. Gustavo Araiza testified that the two bankaccounts under Wehling’s name were closed because of fraud alerts, and therewas “check kiting ” — writing a check for a value greater than the balancefrom one account in one bank, then writing a check from another account tocover the non-existent funds from the first account.

He talked to two people who said they had each submitted more than$2,000 to rent a residence, then were told it wasn’t available.

They were sent reimbursement checks, which bounced when they tried tocash or deposit them, the sergeant said.

Another who stayed at the house were supposed to get part of theirsecurity deposit back, but the reimbursement check for that also bounced, hesaid.

Araiza testified that he found a “trend” of non-sufficient funds inboth bank accounts under Wehling’s name when he served search warrants on theaccounts.

According to police, Maloney and Wehling posed as vacation rental agentsover a two-year period, showing clients online photographs of properties theyclaimed were for rent.

They allegedly would rent out homes owned by local residents usingwebsites such as “Homeaway” and “Vacation Rentals by Owner,” according topolice.

The pair embezzled money from at least 15 Riverside County residentsbetween March 2009 through April 2011, according to the criminal complaint.

Maloney is also facing nine felony charges in a separate case, includingcounterfeiting, forgery and burglary, according to court records.

He and Wehling are both free on a $75,000 bond.