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UPDATE 8/28/2023 (click to be taken to latest updates)
I’m taking a hell of a detour here with this blog but I hope that you will give me the grace to allow me this little rant as I was taken in by this “gentleman” (said with all the sarcasm the world has to offer). He’s not a photographer but I think the word needs to get out to warn others to not invest their hard earned money with this man.
Who is Long Thanh Nguyen??
Long Thanh Nguyen is a man who lives in Alameda California and grew up in Oakland California and owes well over a million dollars to dozens of people between bogus “investment” opportunities through his business LTN Market Ventures LLC and by renting Disney Vacation Club (DVC) points for stays he doesn’t book. These are just the known victims, there likely are many more who haven’t come forward yet.
Long is 33 years old, son of Joseph and Jenny Nguyen, brother to Jimmy and Jody and is married to Tiffany Aguon Nguyen whom he has two children with.
Long attends Saint Anthony’s Church in Oakland, California along with his family.
Long owns LTN Market Ventures LLC which is registered in Las Vegas, Nevada but has/had a mailing address in Alameda, California. He claims to have a private jet but as you can see… the lettering seems a little suspicious.
Here are the social media profiles for Long (also linked above) and photos Long Thanh Nguyen and his family.
Summary of DVC Victims
At the time of writing there are 27 groups who have not been given valid reservation numbers from Long Nguyen for their stays with the DVC Rental Points they paid for.
A total of $91,821 has been taken by Long for these stays. He has only personally refunded $8,027 of that balance. There has been a handful of refunds given from PayPal and the banks involved.
None of these victims have a valid reservation number. 8 victims have already have had their stays pass without having a room from their contracted stay with Long. Due to the public outcry 6 of those 8 were able to make alternative stay arrangements but 2 victims arrived to Hawaii without rooms and had to scramble on the spot to find accommodations. Update 11/2022: after the writing of this post, no one else had a valid stay.
Person 1: $4965, no reservation # given
Person 2: $1802, invalid reservation #
Person 3: $4850, invalid reservation #
Person 4: $7000, booked as cash, canceled next day
Person 5: $2000, invalid reservation #
Person 6: $2100, no reservation #
Person 7: $4590, no reservation #
Person 8: $3100, no reservation #
Person 9: $2500, invalid reservation #
Person 10: $4726, no reservation #
Person 11: $6800, invalid reservation #
Person 12: $2600, invalid reservation #
Person 13: $1292, invalid reservation #
Person 14: $1550, no reservation #
Person 15/16: $6500, invalid reservation #
Person 17: $4454, no reservation #
Person 18: $2527, incorrect days for reservation #
Person 19: $1768, invalid reservation #
Person 20: $3200, no reservation #
Person 21: $6080, invalid reservation #
Person 22: $3716, invalid reservation #
Person 23: $1750, invalid reservation #
Person 24: $1700, invalid reservation #
Person 25: $1730, no reservation #
Person 26: $4301, incorrect days for reservation #
Person 27: $4131, no reservation #
He has rented out at the time of writing 5643 points and the majority of these points are not for resorts that have any record of him, his immediate family or his known business having timeshare points to cover the stays. This is all public record and is pretty easy to research. There is a possibility there are other contracts out there but I couldn’t find anything. The only points Long owns are 100 (not 1000) points through Aulani purchased in 2014.
Keep in mind that in order to have 5643 points to rent at the LOWEST cost per point with Disney’s DVC Timeshare (I’m using what he paid for at the time of his Aulani contract) he would have had to spend $713,557.35 to purchase these. For someone who is currently in foreclosure for their home, it’s hard to believe that he would have the funds to pay for this steep of a timeshare rental.
My Story with Long Thanh Nguyen in Alameda, California
I am making a trip to Walt Disney World in the end of this year with friends and we decided to rent Disney Vacation Club (DVC) rental points so we could all stay in the same room together. It makes it a bit more sense financially plus enabled us to stay at a nicer resort than the same price point through Disney directly.
Disney has various DVC Villas on their properties which are timeshares owners can buy into. Often owners rent out their timeshare points which can often be a huge savings over the rack rate from Disney. Often these rooms come with extra bedrooms and amenities that the regular hotel rooms do not have which make it even more enticing. For example, the DVC villas have a kitchen/kitchenette, laundry and extra bathrooms that a regular hotel room won’t have.
After being on a waitlist for about a month for various third party brokers I was told by friends that often renting via the DVC Rental FB groups works out better and is often a better price.
I joined one of the most popular groups and made an ISO post which is what you’re supposed to do.
In response to that post I got two private messages from people with points to rent. One renting at $21/point and one at $17/point. Both had histories on the board but I continued the conversation with the one that was cheaper which was with Long Nguyen. FWIW, $17/point isn’t so cheap it would raise red flags but cheap enough to be enticing… which is exactly I imagine what Long wanted.
I admit, being completely new to this the contract seemed legit and he seemed also to be legit. His Facebook Profile is who he says he is. His wife is connected to his account. His images aren’t stolen. Photos on the wife’s account at the time (she’s since stripped down her FB profile to be bare bones) show them at Disneyland and at Aulani (Disney property in Hawaii). All seemed to be on the up and up.
When it came time to discuss payment, some alarm bells went off.
I should have listened to my gut when I heard his PayPal was not working but I trusted Long. I have had random flags from PayPal in the past myself for nothing wrong on my end. Later I would find out this was due to issues with a couple of the reservations as he was giving out numbers that weren’t working (I dig further into this below).
We went back and forth for a couple days and I reached out to people within the Facebook group that had mentioned booking/staying with him. All replied back with good reviews. Two had already stayed with him and both were looking to stay with him again and two more have upcoming stays with nothing bad to say. All of them were valid humans, no stolen images and were active members in the group. I decided to move forward with the reservation with Long based on these references.
On February 19th Long replied to me via FB Messenger to tell me he had made the reservation the night before.
This is where I went wrong due to not knowing the ins and outs of renting DVC points with someone directly online. For anyone reading this and considering the same: make sure that the reservation number is given to you and is valid before any money is exchanged.
To be honest though, I will never rent directly from someone and if I ever rent DVC rental points in the future I will do so with DVC Rental Store as I eventually ended up doing so for our trip.
From here we moved from Facebook Messenger to iMessage.
Learn from my mistakes again: if you are to enter into a private DVC points rental with someone, make sure the contract states that you will receive a valid reservation number. This was another oversight I made in my journey with Long. I didn’t realize that there wasn’t anywhere in his contract that stated I would *ever* receive a reservation number from him. There is mention of him refunding if you show up and there is no room, which he will later point to as the reason he is not refunding me yet. Note, again, this *has* happened to other victims but so far they are still owed a refund.
My bank would not allow me to pay the full amount via Apple Pay.
I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO APPLE!
To give myself some credit, my bank at the best of times is often a pain in the ass when it comes to online cash transactions, ESPECIALLY Apple Cash. So this isn’t unusual – I’ve had it deny Apple Cash before when trying to pay a friend back for lunch when her Venmo was acting up. Part of why Long’s scheme worked is because we all have had issues with things like this before.
Long tried to get me to use Google Pay but at that time my bank wouldn’t work with it. So I STUPIDLY kept looking into other options just assuming my bank was the issue, not Long or his history.
I asked about his Venmo but Long sent this claiming that his Venmo was tied to his PayPal so he couldn’t accept that either. Later I would find out that this was because previous victims used Venmo and his account was shut down when that balance went negative.
I tried Cash App which also failed for my protection due to his history. Again, I wasn’t aware of this until much later.
Finally I tried through Zelle which is set up through my bank. My bank advised me that there is a $1000 cash limit per day with cash apps so I started with that and yet again, it failed.
Through all of this trial and error Long kept assuring me that the reservation was made and it didn’t matter how long it took. He would be transferring the reservation to my name once everything was paid in full but the room was secured.
I also reached back out to two of the references I had talked with to see if they had any issues paying him. One paid via PayPal without issues, one with Apple Pay. Since someone else had paid via Apple Pay and had good things to say I decided to pursue that route.
After talking again with my bank they advised me to send the payment to Long in $500 batches which is finally what did the trick. Once I started paying Long though, he suddenly had a lot of reasons why he wasn’t texting me like he was before.
First it was closing out taxes at work. Then it was that he was going out of town from 3/4 but will be back the “following weekend” when I had paid in full. Note, this was when he was supposed to be making the reservation switch into my name.
Somehow while he was on vacation he was able to sign the contract though that I had signed in February.
I was paid in full on 3/7/2022 and I waited a week to contact Long again asking what the next steps were. He stated he was still out of town and he just needed to make the switch so that I was the primary guest on the reservation. He said that he needed to call to do that.
He replied back on 3/15 to tell me that they were home. I didn’t hear back from Long again until shit hit the fan on Friday 3/18/22.
On the morning of Friday 3/18/22 I got a message from one of the references I had used for Long telling me to contact my bank ASAP and file a dispute. They told me a lot of people had issues with Long for upcoming stays.
I immediately contacted Long and demanded a refund and he gave me the runaround. While he was replying to me claiming he was at work he was telling the others he was getting on his plane to travel.
What’s curious about this story about “one person” is that later he’d go on to repeat this same story to another victim but claim that I am this person.
Reminder: Long has only had two verified guests stay at Disney through trips booked by him. I’ve never been able to confirm if those were even booked with DVC points or if they were cash stays. One paid him $350 for one night. One paid him $550 for two nights.
I don’t know if the hours of the DVC customer service is legitimate but I’ve been told he could easily make this change online. I still maintain he never made this reservation and at this point in time he can’t make the reservation as the rooms are sold out.
I wasn’t making threats. I was making promises and telling him my next steps.
After his text I did what I said I would do. I contacted my bank, I made a report with the police and I contacted my contact at the FBI.
For someone that has currently multiple lawsuits against him that he’s not replied to and as a result has default judgements against him I’m very surprised he even has a lawyer but, as my favorite red headed orphan likes to say, The Truth Shall Set You Free.
Unlike many of the other victims, I was able to secure the same room I was wanting since I had a smidge of time to act (this room is sold out now). SO many of our group were not able to stay in the rooms they were booking through Long because they sold out by the time they found out that Long was not holding up his end of the deal.
2 valid renters without issues does not = “many” nor does that make you trustworthy.
Again, I cannot find any of these additional contracts he claims to have unless he’s referring to his Aunt Jacqueline, who does have a 450 point contract at the Polynesian. Even with that contract (which I highly doubt she allows Long to rent out) it still doesn’t come close to the nearly 6000 points rented out and that doesn’t include the multiple nights he’s personally stayed at DVC properties this year.
You may be tired of it Long but if the shoe fits…
There is no cost out of pocket to make a DVC reservation with points to the owner. If, in the ice cube’s chance in hell, Long had actually made a reservation for me like he claimed, there is no financial investment to make or cancel it.
Bottom line: if he was legit and not scamming, he would have refunded the money that I sent two weeks before.
Needless to say, I’m not signing shit.
Especially when he himself signed numerous agreements with others to provide them rooms for them to show up and have no hotel room?
Beyond that, at this point we’d found the two lawsuits against Long from his FRIENDS (scroll for more on that) who “invested” nearly a million dollars with him. Both lawsuits outlined their journey with Long and it was very similar to what we were going thorough with many stories, excuses, promises and making it seem like he himself was the victim.
Is it false when there is no reservation and you aren’t refunding?
I can wait until November to show up and have no room waiting for me. 8 of our group of nearly 30 so far have not had a room and right now the room I paid for is sold out so I have little faith there will be a room waiting for me when I arrive.
I didn’t falsely do anything.
I took it this far because YOU took it this far.
You should have refunded me when you had the chance Long.
Like after ALL of this I would trust Long to be the one in charge of finding an escrow account.
He made these claims with the other victims and I know it will be a shock but he never did come through with that – or the BillPay he claimed to use to send refunds either. Lost in the mail my ass.
I filed a dispute with my bank which was denied and filed a police report which was required by my bank. The police report has been closed since the money crossed state lines. I’ve been told that makes this an FBI issue but the FBI will not touch this case until he’s taken over 1.5 million dollars. Nice, right?
I won’t stop here and will continue to hope that justice will be served to this man who stole so much money with not an apparent single fuck given.
Yes, I made mistakes. I should have listened to my gut. I should have done a lot of things different but just because I made mistakes doesn’t mean that I deserve to have lost this money or that Long should be free to continue to do this to others. Since it appears there won’t be any criminal consequences I’ve taken to social media in hopes that when/if he tries this again that the next person won’t fall into the same trap.
So… that’s where my story ends with Long. Now, as Paul Harvey would say, here’s the rest of the story.
How Long Used Facebook Groups to Find Victims
Starting in late 2021 Long Nguyen started posting on various Facebook DVC Rental Groups with stays he had booked and claiming he had 1000 Aulani points to rent out.
On November 9th, 2021 it started with Long posting to the DVC Member Rental Aulani and Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel & Spa Facebook Group. He claimed to have 1000 points to rent out by the end of 2021. He claimed that these points can be used any any Disney property. Originally these were $18/point but he eventually would lower this to $17/point on 11/14/2021 for a ‘quicker sale’ he claimed.
Later we would find out that he only owns 100 points and likely did a quick source edit to add a 0 to that balance to make this look real. Allegedly he did that previously with some of the victims involved in his investment scheme.
From the above post Long would take in at least 9 victims alone.
As proof of ownership he would show his member ID card.
Long would also repost this ad on various other Disney DVC Point Rental groups on Facebook.
On November 5th, Long posted an ad for a 1 night stay at Old Key West at Walt Disney World in the DVC Disney Vacation Club Points Rental Facebook Group. Someone did book this deal and almost booked another stay with Long for this year but luckily backed out when everything started hitting the fan. This person was another reference for Long.
On November 21st, Long posted an ad for a 2 night stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World in the DVC Disney Vacation Club Points Rental Facebook Group.
This rental would go to Sarah L who then became one of Long’s references to not only myself but many others as well.
On December 7th, Long posted an ad for the Grand Californian to the DVC Member Rental Aulani and Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel & Spa Facebook Group. Long would eventually claim this was taken but so far no one has admitted this was rented by them.
On January 31, 2022 Long would post an ad to the DVC Member Rental Aulani and Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel & Spa Facebook Group. This rental would go to another victim of his.
While I have no proof, my educated guess is that the above ads (especially the low point stays) were made to get a few valid stays for referrals to gain more victims.
At the beginning of January the first of the ‘new batch’ of Long’s victims would show up to a Disney property to no reservations although we wouldn’t find out until much later when we started to band together and get the word out.
By the end of January people started to suspect that something was amiss. Those that booked Long from the 1000 point post in November were struggling to get a valid confirmation number from Long and getting a lot of sob stories. They began to push harder and as the 30 day mark crept closer, many started to find out from the resorts that no bookings existed either in their names or Long’s.
Note, the DVC Disney Vacation Club Points Rental Facebook Group that Long found me in? They were made aware that his reservations were full of issues and were advised to remove him on 2/6/2022, before myself and many others were found by him within that group.
Nicole wasn’t the only one reached out to. Beverly Gustafsson was also reached out to.
Eventually the admin team decided to ignore the many messages and the “admin team” with this FB Group owned by One Little Spark Travel allowed Long to stay. He wasn’t removed until late March, long after everything came to pass and MANY of us were scammed.
When I tried to make others aware in that group I was muted and booted for causing drama. After this blog post they BLOCKED ME from the group so I had to have a friend look them up so I could have the URL to link here. They DEFINITELY care about their members don’t they. They don’t block Long for another 2 months after they were first made aware but ban and block anyone who tries to let others know they were scammed. Shame on you Beverly / One Little Spark for allowing almost 20 members of yours to fall victim to a man you were aware was not booking valid reservations but allowed to stay in the group for ~reasons~ while banning and blocking those of us trying to get the word out.
While many DVC Rental Facebook Groups did eventually post a warning about Long Nguyen naming him specifically so that members could find out and protect themselves if they also were a victim, the DVC Disney Vacation Club Points Rental group only posted a weak ass statement without naming him and didn’t remove him from their group until late March 2022.
One family paid Long after their weak post about scammers that didn’t name Long. Since he wasn’t named and he was still in the group they didn’t realize that post was about him. Notice the ‘warning’ is more whining about people daring to try to protect other renters instead of you know, caring about the members in their community.
The Other DVC Victims
This isn’t just my story to tell, this is all of our stories and some of the other victims want you to know their side of things.
- Victim #2 invested $1802 with Long after he found her through the DVC Vacation Club Points Rental Facebook Group where she made an ISO post for her desired dates/location in mid February. This victim is a mother of 2 and a teacher. This trip was to be a fun friends trip to Walt Disney World. They were looking forward to staying at the Polynesian but rebooked at a value hotel since that was all they could afford after losing their investment with Long. The primary victim opted to pay her friends back and take the loss entirely on her own since it was her decision to go with him. She also had to drop a masters class over the summer to fit the trip in the budget still.
- Victim #3 invested $7000 with Long after he found them through the DVC Vacation Club Points Rental Facebook Group where they made an ISO post for her desired dates/location in early March. This is a family of 3 that were looking for some Disney magic after a troublesome couple years. Between health issues, loss of family and jobs, they decided to take a trip of a life time, as they needed something to look forward to after a trying couple of years. They pinched every penny and saved to make this trip happen, just for Long to steal it all. They invested 7k to try and make their 2 week stay a more comfortable one with a 1 bedroom villa as opposed to just a resort room. They had to re-book using our retirement savings and will now have to pick up more overtime and work extra jobs to have money for when they actually get there.
- Victim #7 invested $4590 with Long after he found her through the DVC Vacation Club Points Rental Facebook Group where she made an ISO post for her desired dates/location in late February. Christal B is a mom to 4 children 7 and under and had been saving for this trip on her public teachers salary for over 2 years. This trip is a multigenerational trip with her family and Christel had to use her summer savings (teachers don’t get paid in the summer) to pay back those that had given her money for the booking that Long never made. She’s now looking for a part time job to be able to afford to make ends meet and hopefully make the trip to Disney still with her family, albeit in a different room.
Fake/Invalid/Canceled Reservation Numbers
Why did I immediately know that Long was not making valid stays? Once the victims started to band together and sharing our stories, one thing quickly became clear: no one had a valid reservation for their stay.
While many of the DVC victims of Long’s never did get a reservation number from Long, there are a few who did, especially those that booked Long in November/December/January.
The ones who did get a reservation number got one that either never would link on My Disney Experience or one that would link and have the wrong information (wrong names, wrong dates) and the very few that were correct was canceled shortly after being linked OR were a cash stay where Long only paid for 1 of the xxxx nights (and THEN canceled).
Since I know Long is protesting to all that will listen that this blog is full of lies and I’m all about proof so here we go. Here are the various reservations sent and what was wrong with them.
This one looked most legit out of the reservations that people got but there was of course issues with the reservations. Mainly that Long left his last name of the main person on the reservation instead of their actual last name.
Also, in the email that was forwarded from his email the links don’t all work. This is a prevailing issue across all of the forwarded emails which I suspect were copy/pasted/edited by Long.
When this person tried to use the reservation number it did not match the records that Disney had in their system.
Eventually this victim would have to book their room at a different hotel due to the amount lost with Long and due to the room no longer being available at the Polynesian.
Next!
This is another forwarded email reservation from Long, not Disney.
While it was claimed this is a “known” DVC glitch, it is not. The header of the email is welcoming the guest in September while the confirmation is for October.
There’s another huge issue that wouldn’t be immediately noticed either – 10/15/2022 is a SATURDAY not a Friday. However at the end of the email the dates of the week were correct.
The names were also incorrectly spelled.
When called, Disney confirmed that while this was a valid reservation number it was canceled the same day it was made. It is unknown if this reservation was made by Long or not but either way it was not a valid reservation for this guest that is active.
However, when on the phone this victim was able to confirm that there was another reservation number in her name but it was for the wrong dates (September, not October) and that reservation was also canceled the same day it was made.
This next one Long did a better job with but, again, he missed the welcome header and left October while the stay was in March.
He DID get the names correct on this reservation but when they tried to link the reservation in their app it didn’t match their records.
They called Disney and Disney confirmed that it was a valid reservation number BUT it was for a stay at Walt Disney World and not at Aulani and wasn’t under their names or Long’s.
This victim was able to book a valid stay on the hotel side of Aulani and is one of the few victims that Long refunded after her trip to Hawaii where, of course, there was no room waiting for her.
This next reservation was one of the few that didn’t have any obvious errors in the reservation email. However, when they attempted to link this in the My Disney Experience app, the reservation was for only one night instead of seven and was eventually canceled.
The last of the forwarded email reservations before he moved onto a different format is this one.
This is another email where he missed fixing the greeting so this says July in the welcome for dates in March.
The guests names were all misspelled yet again.
When they attempted to link this reservation in the app it came back as not matching records so this person called Disney. They informed them that this number matched a reservation but it was for another family, under a different member ID than Long’s at Walt Disney World’s BoardWalk Villas and not for them at Disneyland.
The same victim was given another reservation number from Long.
Yet again, this reservation had issues. The names were misspelled AGAIN. I left the address which is Long’s business address in California.
When the victim called Disney to ask about the number they told them that this number also was for a guest at Walt Disney World, not for Disneyland.
This is another rare victim that was refunded by Long but was also one of the first to call him out as when she called the Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian they confirmed there was no room for her booked 10 days out from her trip and verified the numbers she’d been given were not valid for her.
Due to the hotel being sold out for most of the trip they had to stay offsite for all but 2 nights.
Long moved from sending the “forwarded” email to sending screen captures of the alleged confirmation email from Disney to the victims.
Long left his name yet again in the “guests” section as the lead guest. The names of the guests are all misspelled. When confronted Long blamed DVC for this issue.
Of course this number wouldn’t link in the app. When Disney was called they said that this was never a valid confirmation number.
When confronted about the issues Long told this victim that he had to cancel the reservation to rebook with the correct spelling and that it wasn’t something he could change. He has never sent another reservation number.
This victim has not been able to rebook since the hotels on site are all fully booked for their dates. Long claims to be working on their refund.
This next reservation again has Long as the guest instead of who the room was for. When the victim attempted to link this reservation in My Disney Experience it did not match their records.
The following victim booked two rooms through Long for a large family group going to Hawaii to celebrate an anniversary. Neither number would link in My Disney Experience. When the travel dates came, they verified with Aulani that these reservations never existed for them, nor were there rooms booked by Long for them.
Thankfully they were able to make alternative arrangements.
This victim had a valid (but unknown to her at the time, cash not point) stay at Disneyland in February and also booked a trip with Long for Aulani in October.
Both reservation numbers sent were only valid for 1 night of the stay, both were canceled with in a day of the reservation.
The next victim also had another email where the greeting month (October) doesn’t match the actual travel month (July) and Long, again, left his name as the primary guest.
This number would not link in My Disney Experience stating it doesn’t match records.
This victim was able to rebook directly through Aulani.
The next two reservations are two different screen captures that Long sent to two COMPLETELY different people for two completely different stays.
Same reservation number for both. Neither worked of course.
For this victim she was sent a photo of the screen showing the reservation. This number would not link in My Disney Experience. Long has claimed to have sent this victim a refund via BillPay but it has not arrived.
For this guest with the same reservation number as the above guest, when the victim attempted to load it into My Disney Experience it didn’t match records and wouldn’t work.
The final one never got an email but had the reservation numbers sent to them via text just before leaving for their trip to Hawaii in January.
These were friends and the two groups were traveling with one victim coming a few days before the second.
When the first of the two friend groups arrived to Hawaii there was no hotel room for them. Long seemed to be really upset and, of course, blamed Disney. He even sent his credit card info over for this guest to use to book to stay elsewhere. In the end this guest and the other guest that also booked with Long would have to pay over $15K to rebook stays while in Hawaii in addition to the money they lost with the initial reservation.
Long claimed that Disney would reimburse them but, surprise, surprise, so far that check from Disney hasn’t arrived.
When they arrived there was no room.
You may want to think that you would be smarter than us but Long had good stories at the ready as to why things were going the way they were.
Excuses Given
Long blamed various DVC “known glitches” over and over again for reasons as to why the reservation numbers he gave were not linking in the system. For those not given a number he endlessly put them off with various stories of DVC glitches and being busy.
Here’s just a small sample of the stories Long told the victims to keep them on the line for as long as possible.
He was very good with the stories.
He was always at the ready with blaming work.
Long was willing to help so it must be Disney, right?
Thankfully this potential victim refused to pay until the reservation was in her name and would only pay via PayPal. She booked her stay with someone else when the reservation wouldn’t work and the PayPal glitch was never resolved.
This next conversation with a victim shows how lenient we were.
People still wanted to believe in Long so they bought the reasons Long gave for the issues. At first it was due to Disney DVC glitches which he claimed were well known (there wasn’t any).
Boy if I were Disney I’d be suing Long for libel because he threw Disney DVC under the bus every chance he had.
When pushed harder on why things weren’t being cleared up he started with the stories.
I kept getting put off due to being busy at work with “year end taxes” and an extended trip.
Someone else was told that he had a tree go through his trailer and he’d been busy dealing with that issue.
Note: I checked with other members at Calaveras Timber Trails where Long is/was a member and this is not Long’s trailer.
A few people were told that he had an Aunt and Uncle die and had to fly out for the funerals.
Yes, he also claimed his grandmother was attacked.
He continued that story with others as well.
Then denied using it as an excuse *laugh emoji*
Another photo of his “grandma” that he sent someone else claiming she was attacked.
But… Long tells another victim that he never used his grandma as an excuse.
Another person got the DVC glitches AND a bonus ill Father in Law.
He also isn’t afraid of using his children as an excuse either.
Once everyone banded together shit got real for Long and he still tried to scramble. He got removed from most Facebook Groups but managed to join some smaller ones and was called out by an owner of one of the larger FB groups on said smaller DVC Rental Facebook Group.
As you’re finding out, this is a whole pack of lies. He hasn’t offered to refund me and MANY others. He did refund a few, most of whom were in Carl’s group and who started to put the heat on Long before the rest of us had a clue (hell, before many of us paid him).
No one has threatened him unless you consider telling him we’re going to report him to the police a threat. One victim told Long that their brother lives nearby so they could have him come pick up cash from Long to refund them and he claimed that was a threat. *laughs*
Once the jig was up and everyone started demanding refunds there were more excuses. He’s also tried to turn the victims against each other claiming different things.
There is no lawsuit currently.
This is the worst of the “threats” to Long.
You know what’s in the group chat?
“Did Long pay you yet?”
“Nope”
That’s about the gist of our conversations from the beginning. Have you got a refund? A few sidebars of people trying to help others rebook their rooms.
Hey Long? (He’s reading here, I have his IP address) We’ve had your Member ID since the beginning. Which means…
We were able to verify with Disney that this whole story is horseshit. While they won’t give us information about you or the rooms we were able to use all the reservation numbers given and verify that each and every one was either canceled BY YOU or was never your reservation.
Moron.
Thus far though, Disney hasn’t done shit to you for what you’ve done to us. Which is proven by the fact you were seen at Disneyland on 4/23/2022.
Also you DID personally wrong that victim. You took her money and didn’t make the reservation. She was able to get a refund because you wanted to hush her up but she was not able to stay at the Grand Californian for her entire stay and the trip cost more because of you. So yes, you personally wronged her.
Exactly.
The bottom line is with ALL OF US is that if there were valid reservations they’d be in our names and sent to us.
In the time it takes to argue with us he could have made the reservations. He isn’t sending real reservations because he doesn’t have them and can’t make them.
Also that check has never arrived
What a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.
Some of the victims were given a different number than the 510-517-4386 number most of us had been using (which is since been disconnected). This was a really odd exchange with a victim who arrived to Hawaii to no room that Long convinced was a DVC glitch and Disney was reimbursing her for all of the costs.
Yes, that’s a slur.
Other Previous Victims of Long Thanh Nguyen
Once I started doing some digging into who Long Nguyen is I found that he has 2 current civil lawsuits (Case #CG21589738 and Case #21CV382438) against him. He’s claimed these aren’t him, and yes, his name is a common name but the problem is that the address he was served at per the court documents is the same address that his cell phone contract is listed at. It’s also the same address he used on many of the reservations made for DVC.
If you want a wild ride, look at the docket for Case #21CV382438 at https://portal.scscourt.org/ and pull up the amended complaint against Long Nguyen and his family and associates. While the money is far higher than what we invested with Long, the stories are similar when it comes to song and dance many of us got when asking for proof of our reservations and status of our refunds.
Ending With a WTF?
For a final laugh in this chapter of whatever the HELL you want to call this disaster, I leave you with the google history attached to the username Long used on Facebook and CashApp. It may not be him but it’s a hell of a coincidence considering that the person in these chats is the same age as Long and also is very interested in crypto. Note: this has since been deleted, I’m guessing someone changed their username in the chats once this post went live. He also changed his username on Facebook after I posted this.
The End?
I know I will likely not see my money again. I have made other arrangements to make sure we have a place to stay when we go to Disney. So since I won’t get my money back the very least I can do is try to put this story out there so that others do not fall into the same trap we did. Since he is operating by private messaging those who post ISO ads in groups it’s impossible to track down everyone that may have fallen for this.
So be wary when renting DVC points with Long Nguyen who lives in Alameda, CA. It’s very possible that you may not get a reservation or your money back.
After this post I was given a heads up that he was also possibly renting out DVC timeshare points on Redweek and VRBO so if you’ve come across a “Long N” there and are having issues with your reservation please let me know.
Update 4/28/2022:
I adjusted the initial blog post to flow a bit better and added more photos of Long since he was recognized this past weekend at Disneyland. Yes, after stealing nearly $100K from families, making many have to cancel their own plans to visit Disney due to the loss, Long took his family to Disneyland with the money stolen.
I am lucky, I can afford the loss and while it sucks I can still go to Disney. Others in our group are not so lucky. I’ve added some of their stories to the blog as well.
I also added the updated links to Long’s social media since he’s changed his usernames and profiles.
I also slipped in a couple days later with more screen caps of conversations held with long and more of the reservation fuckery.
This story was picked up by my local news station, Inside the Magic , DVC Rental Store, Mickey Blog and on DVC Fan. It also spread around all the Disney pages so I hope that no more people invest their hard earned dollars with Long. I have no doubts though that he will likely move on to some other kind of shady shit.
So far a week has not gone by without finding a new victim.
Thus far, all of our attempts to have Long Thanh Nguyen held responsible for his crimes has been futile. It absolutely blows my mind and is a complete injustice that a man can blatantly take nearly $100K from people online using his real name, his real phone number without any attempts to hide his identity and get away with it simply because it wasn’t millions.
While it’s a shallow win, I do consider it a small victory that he was recognized and I hope every time he goes to any Disney park from now on he is recognized again and again.
Oh and why do I talk directly to him at times here? Because he has been actively refreshing this blog post daily. Hi Long! See that donate button? If you feel so moved that’s how you can refund me.
Whew.
There’s so much to update but I’m going to sit on some of it for another month or so pending the (hopeful) partial resolution to this case.
A few weeks ago I opened my rarely-used Snapchat to check on something and was shocked to see that a “Justin Nguyen” had been added to my friend list from my contacts.
Yeah, that’s using Long’s former phone number. That definitely got my attention.
Then… I got more information via email after someone found this blog when researching Long who is apparently now calling himself Justin.
He’s told people that I am a liar who is mad about a business deal gone wrong. Well, I guess that’s partially true if you want to call trying to rent DVC points with him a business deal and it did go wrong since there was no room booked for me when I went this past November (and trust me, Disney checked multiple times) and he never refunded me.
Apparently Long/Justin and is on the market and is out dating again. Public records do not show a divorce between him and Tiffany but beyond that I don’t know what his relationship status is.
He’s promising the world to women and definitely putting the woo on, swanning in driving a white Tesla and claiming to have purchased an expensive home for their love nest.
There may also be some more Disney DVC fuckery afoot. I mean, why not when he’s already stolen at least $100K from over 20 different victims without a consequence.
So, I’m updating this post and once again urging EVERYONE to only use reputable dealers when renting Disney DVC points and not to go with anyone that finds you via a Facebook Group or Discussion Post etc.
Maybe someday the 20+ of us that lost over $100K with Long will also have our day in court but for now we’re all eagerly awaiting the current Federal case to be complete so at the very least he is off the internet and can stop scamming people… for at least a little while.
