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Jon Zolecki, Chicagoland Property Group, Scofflaw Leasing Manager

With 1,134 ads, Jon Zolecki is the top dog of individual apartment ad spammers at Craigslist. He’s a standout at Chicagoland Property Group (“CPG”), which we’ve referred to as Craiglist’s worst apartment ad spammer. CPG currently has about 7,000 apartment ads at Craigslist.

Zolecki’s LinkedIn profile identifies him as CPG’s Leasing Manager. He blends in seamlessly with other scofflaws at CPG when it comes to advertising apartments without having the written authorization that the Illinois Real Estate License Act (the “Act”) requires. We’ve documented 133 Zolecki ads for five properties which CPG is not authorized to advertise. We scanned more illegal ads, but didn’t take the time to save screen caps.

Zolecki stands out, even at CPG, as a bait-and-switch addict. Zolecki ads for each of the five properties materially understated the price of available units – $400 below the lowest-priced one-bedroom, for example. Three of the 5 properties had no availability for one of the unit types Zolecki advertised.

Enough about Zolecki, even though we could go on at great length about how misleading his ads are.

Collin Walker, CPG’s managing broker, has an obligation under the Act to supervise Zolecki’s advertising. As far as the Act is concerned, we’re confident he’s failing to fulfill that obligation. As far as Walker is concerned, it’s our opinion that Zolecki is doing exactly what’s required of agents at CPG: polluting Craigslist in an effort to confuse and frustrate renters into contacting a CPG scofflaw.

We’ve written in the past few days about Collin Walker’s failure to supervise advertising by members of his spam-family: Joi Walker, his mother, Kellen Walker, his brother, and Cassi (Walker) Norman, his sister.

Cleaning up after his mother, brother, sister and Jon Zolecki’s won’t be enough to protect Collin Walker’s managing broker license. We’ll be monitoring the sea of Craigslist spam ads generated by other agents at CPG. And, of course, Collin’s own online behavior. We’ll email links to this post to both Collin Walker and Jon Zolecki.

Is there something in the water in Channahon? Zolecki is from the same small town, 50 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, where the spam-family Walker is based.

Type the following in your Craigslist search, and you’ll be spared having to see CPG ads: – “Chicagoland Property Group”

It’s been our long experience that leasing agents who scoff at any legal or ethical obligation are likely to scoff at all. Renters need to be aware that the only sure way to avoid the risk of falling victim to a scofflaw rental service leasing agent is to avoid all Chicago rental services and work directly with properties. YoChicago’s apartment reviews and lists make it easy for you to find an apartment in sought-after lakefront neighborhoods.

Managing brokers at Chicago rental services need to be aware that we won’t be focusing all of our attention on Collin Walker / CPG. We’re documenting the abuses of agents in other firms, and will be making their managing brokers aware of them, and monitoring their subsequent behavior.

Update 3/14 9:15 am: Just received email confirmation from a sixth property for which Zolecki ran 40 unauthorized ads at Craigslist.

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