There's a pretty interesting Japanese show called Tokyo Swindlers that covers some real estate fraud in Tokyo. Not particularly realistic as far as I know but I enjoyed it.
I have had people show up at my house to ask if it was for rent, based on a fake post on Facebook using photos from Zillow from before my home was sold.
My realtor helped me get the photos taken down, but the Facebook ads for it are up to this day. Facebook completely ignores any and all attempts by me to report this malfeasance -- even though these ads literally have my personal home address on them!
It's a huge safety risk to me and not due to anything I did whatsoever; all I did was buy a house that was on the market and then move into it. It's a nightmare.
I would contact Facebook legal directly with documents showing the problem. Legal’s job is always to minimize liability for the company, and they have levers they can pull in any organization, no matter how “hyper scale” they claim to be.
Bonus points for figuring out the correct language to use to imply repercussions for failure to act without any actual threats. Patio11 has written about similarly worded letters with regards to debt collections and banking, and I know that there are all kinds of magic incantations in law for all kinds of transgretions.
"Patio11" itself is a magic incantion for your friendly neighborhood LLM, along with "dangerous professional". You can use these to prompt for suitable language in the email, as well as other courses of action.
Facebook admits around 10% of their ads are fraudulent. I think it's much higher.
The scam is even larger than you see and exploits missing children reports. There are huge automated scam networks that post missing children reports then get people to share them. Then once the post/ad gets traction they change it to a listing of a house that is auto pulled from public information. They then use that to scam people.
A motivated attacker need only don a green safety vest and hard hat, then roll up with a white pickup truck, place some orange safety cones and take down the sign with a chainsaw.
The point is that nearly all of the people doing this don't even live in the country where the land is being sold from. A simple sign would probably be quite effective
True, but you can still do a confused deputy attack. The fraudster hires a property manager, informs them that they would like to remove the sign because they wish the list the property for sale. Either that or they con a realtor they're working with into doing it. The unknowing realtor, eager for the commission, knows a guy who can take it down.
There's always something that can happen in any scenario. Social engineering, hiring locals, deeper forms of identity theft, or worse. The possibilities never hit 0, they just become a lot less profitable (and a lot riskier) a scam to try to run.
Yes, locks aren’t there to prevent the determined thief. They are for the 99% of other opportunists that will move on to an easier target immediately when they see your lock is harder to defeat
The realtor might pay for it or even do it themselves. It would take 5 minutes with a reciprocating saw. Or the scammer tells the realtor "never mind that" and the realtor tells the buyer.
No, but paying someone $300 is cheap when you hope to get a check for several hundred thousand in a few months. (even if the scam is only to get the earnest money that is still a $300 investment for the final thousand or two you make - with very little work)
Note that in the article, the author says how the scammers do everything to avoid having to show up in person. That's because they are in a different country and try to commit the scam without setting foot in the US.
1. Author lost me at his first sentence: "Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life." I am careful and aware of this possibility, but AFAIK I have not experienced this, nor have "most people" I know. o_O Crazy times.
2. I don't even understand how a title transfer could happen without verifying ownership. Is the title system in the USA decentralized or that much different than elsewhere? i.e. Torrens-style
> Is the title system in the USA decentralized or that much different than elsewhere?
As with most things both law-related and US-related, it depends. This type of scam would not work in the majority of states due to various laws, regulations, and bookkeeping (it would be nearly* impossible to sell land you don’t own in California for example).
There are other states (and countries - I’m looking at you Canada) where fraudulent documentation and virtually non-existent title checks allow this kind of fraud to persist.
[*] yes - virtually, not completely. It can happen, but the laws are set up such that the land owner will retain their land, the title fraud victim will be made whole financially by a title insurance company. What this means in practice is that title insurance companies make sure every transaction is legitimate and people don’t have to worry about it.
I'm equally careful and aware. Years ago, now, I discovered that someone in New Mexico (if I recall correctly) was working under my Social Security number. That was likely someone not authorized to work in the US writing random digits on an I9 form. No amount of care will protect against that.
It wasn't easy to clear up, either. I'm fortunate that a close friend worked (at the time) for the SS administration, and was able to do basically all of the leg-work for me: I just had to sign a few forms he sent me. Someone not equally connected would have had a much harder time.
I'm also painfully aware that effectively every scrap of everyone's personal data has been repeatedly leaked online. I doubt that any amount of care has much to do with whether or not I'll be targeted at some point in the future.
>That was likely someone not authorized to work in the US writing random digits on an I9 form.
I used to work a job years ago with lots of people who snuck in here. In order to get the job they needed to provide a social. Not having any idea wtf a social security number was, just that they needed one, it was a relief when someone they lived with or met on the street informed them that xyz at location abc will sell you one for $100.
That's one spot where the identity theft rubber meets the road. And practically everyone's social has been leaked by now.
If you don't dispute it, yes. However, if you don't dispute it, IRS knows about it as well and will be asking for their cut. Generally, the benefit increase is not worth higher taxes.
I'm surprised I haven't had more problems with identity theft. Equifax handed all our financial information to criminals a decade ago. Then last year the US government handed all our financial information to a con man.
In the dark old days before Apple Pay, where it was common in America to hand your credit/debit card to some rando at a restaurant and have them disappear with it for a few minutes, about once a year my bank would call me to ask if I'd been using my card in some far-off locale:
"Hi! Are you in Tijuana?"
"Not since 1993. Why? What's up?"
"So you didn't just try to buy gasoline at a PEMEX there?"
"Nope, I'm in San Francisco as speak."
"OK, thanks! We'll get a new card out in the mail to you."
That's a pretty low bar for identity theft, but I think it's defensible.
I've been using a debit card since the Dubya administration and I have never had someone use my card after I ate at a restaurant. I assume you live in a big metro area?
In Texas about a decade ago there was a criminal enterprise out of Houston that was putting swimmers on gas station pumps all over the state. Little towns, big towns, country gas stations. My now wife got hit that way.
You must have been going to some very shady restaurants. I still hand off my credit card to a rando. I did it today. I did it last weekend. I've never had this problem.
I had my corporate card get cloned by the Wendys at Seatac airport, about 10 years ago. Do you consider that to be a sketchy restaurant? Why are you victim blaming?
I had not used the card in several weeks. Coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Wendys was the only purchase I made that day. ~4 hours later my card was declined when checking in to my hotel in LA. Called their security department, they wanted to know whether I had authorized a $4000 purchase at a Best Buy in Dallas.
Yeah I agree. Not only do I hand off my card, literally everyone I know does so. None have ever had problems. I'm not saying that such fraud never happens, because it obviously does happen. But I don't think it's so overwhelmingly common as is being claimed here.
This source[0] is hardly unbiased, so take this with a heavy dose of "citation needed", but it claims:
> 62 million Americans had fraudulent charges on their credit or debit cards last year alone, with unauthorized purchases exceeding $6.2 billion annually.
No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry because that is not an enumerated power of the federal government. The individual states have sovereignty over their own land and each has its own system for land registration. The article you linked to even names several states that have a partial Torrens title system.
The claim that the title insurance industry is the reason for lack of adoption of Torrens title schemes is uncited, and immediately followed by descriptions of several cases where Torrens title was adopted (often poorly) and later abandoned.
> No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry because that is not an enumerated power of the federal government.
I think you misunderstood the post you were replying to. Torrens title was invented in Australia. Just like in the US, land titles are a state responsibility in Australia not a federal one. But each state has a central statewide land registry which is the authoritative source of truth for land ownership. By contrast, US states hold land title records in a decentralised way (at the local government level not the state level), and those records aren’t legally decisive.
Most common law jurisdictions have centralised land titles, but often centralised at one level below the national government.
> how is ownership established if there is no single source of truth?
Oh, boy, let me tell you it is very disconcerting to pay a title company to do a search of legal records on a property, and the only guarantee they offer in some states is that "we didn't find anything suspicious but there is no guarantee that someone from the past won't pop up with a better claim to ownership. You can't hold it against us if that happens." How is it that most people making the biggest purchase of their lives are going along with that? I'm definitely not okay with it, but sometimes you can't buy property without accepting it- no title company will offer a stronger guarantee.
For details, I'm talking about how in some states the Special Warranty Deed is the standard for real estate purchases: https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-is-a-special-warrant.... A title company will guarantee that the current seller hasn't entered any agreements that might legally obligate you (such as offering the property as collateral for an outstanding loan), but they are very clear that actions of previous owners are not included in this guarantee. So there is no single source of truth- we just hope that we're not part of the tiny percentage where the special deed is insufficient.
Edit: for context, there is a distinction between title insurance and the deed itself, but the title company is only offering insurance on the deed, so if the deed only covers the previous owner then the insurance only covers that too.
No, what you describe is the entire purpose of owners title insurance. The idea that it “only covers previous owner” is false, it covers a wide variety of title defects.
I was getting ready to debate you, but I'll admit that I'm mostly wrong about title insurance.
Special warranty deeds only cover the current seller, but title insurance can defend against prior ownership claims. I will note that just because title insurance guarantees they will defend against ownership claims, they don't guarantee it will be settled in a particular way. There's a theoretical possibility that an agreement can't be reached that keeps you in the house you thought you bought legally- like in this story the buyers got their money back but didn't keep the house that wasn't theirs https://www.thetitlereport.com/Articles/Title-Insurance-at-W...
> I will note that just because title insurance guarantees they will defend against ownership claims, they don't guarantee it will be settled in a particular way.
Of course, insurance doesn't guarantee you won't have a covered loss. Insurance compensates you if you have a covered loss.
When I've purchased real estate with title insurance, the offer from the title company has been pretty specific about what risks are covered, what risks are specifically not covered, and what the dollar limits are for covered losses. There's a lot of paperwork involved in purchasing real estate, but the title report and the title insurance offer are worth taking the time to read.
I've read the terms of title insurance and no, you can't hold them liable if it turns out you don't get the property as intended. It's basically useless.
No, the county clerk records aren’t a “single source of truth”. In the US system, it is possible to convince a court the county records are wrong, and order them overridden-which makes them not the single source of truth.
By contrast, in the Torrens system, whatever the government records say are final. If you are the innocent victim of a mistake by the government (or a fraud against it), the government has to compensate you; but you don’t actually get the land back if it has since been sold to an innocent purchaser.
> in the Torrens system, whatever the government records say are final
First, it doesn't seem like that's always the case, based on another post upthread talking about a land ownership case that went to the high court because of an error in the government's records.
Second, since there is no single government for the entire world, any government trying to implement a Torrens system is still going to face the problem of events happening outside its jurisdiction that its records do not and cannot contain, which affect ownership of property in its jurisdiction. So there cannot be a "single source of truth" in the sense you appear to be using the term, even in the Torrens system.
> is still going to face the problem of events happening outside its jurisdiction that its records do not and cannot contain
Excuse my German ignorance, but my understanding of how it works here is that unless the transfer is notarized, logged and recorded with the local authority, there has not been a legal transfer. So, by that definition of land ownership, no "events outside of its jurisdiction" can take place. Any such agreements become binding only upon their verified registration. A notary is responsible not only for confirming the transfer but also as independent consultant so neither party gets seriously ripped off. (And if they didn't, they would be in serious liability trouble.)
The "share of the database" is managed and owned by the local government, but its records are available all across Germany for authorities to look up. The vector database of lots is public, and there are procedures to request access to ownership documents for various purposes. The procedure is that when you want to buy a certain property, the owner confirms that you have permission to get the official record directly from the land registry, which then become the basis for any serious negotiations as what is recorded there is in fact the single source of truth.
In the three states where I've been involved in or observed real estate transactions, the system is similar in that a real estate transaction must be recorded with the county clerk to become effective. Generally documents are notarized to validate the identity of the signatories, and a notary is expected to confirm that the signatories understand what they are signing.
However, afaik, county clerks do not validate deeds; they will dutifully record any submitted deed if it follows the proper forms. If there is doubt about the validity of a conveyance, the whole history of recorded deeds for a property can be examined and potentially set aside if found to be fraudulent. Adverse possession laws can moot disputes about old conveyances though: after some time, someone who has "color of title", actual possession, and pays property taxes will gain actual title to the property, even if their original deed was deficient.
In a land registry system, the keeper of the registry generally validates that conveyances are approved by the current owner; this doesn't happen in a system of registered deeds. Deeds I've seen don't truly identify the grantors or grantees either. Typically just the first and last names. There are many people with my name, but if you have a deed for my house signed by the Pulitzer Prize winning author who shares my name, you can record it even though it's not actually valid.
Yes, it does sound like typical German bureaucracy to make events like death outside the jurisdiction impossible unless the deceased has obtained prior approval to kick the bucket. :)
Well, I do enjoy the layers of protection implemented here. It sounds like you wouldn't?
The record from the land registry includes things like wayrights for third parties, known ground contaminations, utilities/water/power lines etc. -- all very relevant to me as a potential buyer. I did enjoy the notaries explanations of various aspects, which went beyond reading the contract out loud and making sure we verbally understood what we were going to sign. The process also forces both parties to have written copies of everything prior to the final meeting, which provides another chance to let it sink in and potentially reconsider -- which in our case, we did. Also, they're really trained to verify IDs, not like a random clerk in some liquor store.
I understand one can experience it as "bureaucracy" and "annoyance" in their individual case, but then I wonder how much such people consider the bigger picture and what the benefit of all of it really is, for their own and for societies sake, and what kind of shitshow it would turn into if we got rid of all the "bureaucracy" -- such as described in the very blogpost here.
Even if I (wrongly?) assume I am always on top of things and I will not get ripped off ever, only so-called stupid people will, I really don't need more angry people who fell for scams or made quick decisions that they regret or whose identity got 'stolen' around me/on public streets/in bars. If it was for me, we could add even more such layers of protection, which you seem to see only as "(unnecessary) bureaucracy"?
In the Torrens system, if you do not register the transfer of property with the government, then the transfer hasn't happened. So whatever else happens in the rest of the world doesn't matter (at least, unless the land itself is annexed by another government).
(And, from similar cases in the UK which has this system, if the land registry fucks up the transfer is still final and this has been upheld by the court, the government may just be liable for damages)
> In the Torrens system, if you do not register the transfer of property with the government, then the transfer hasn't happened.
This is also true of county clerks in the US: any transfer of property in the county has to be recorded on a deed that is submitted to the county clerk and kept on file by them. Otherwise it hasn't happened.
> if the land registry fucks up the transfer is still final
This is the part that might not be the same in all US jurisdictions (though it appears it is the same in some, someone posted upthread about Iowa having a system like this).
FWIW even in the US system the courts usually won't order someone off land they are living on or using even if this were the case. At worst they would order compensation be paid - which is what title insurance actually covers.
Many states have a statute of limitations anyway. If you live on the land and pay the property taxes for N years everything else becomes irrelevant. Either the title was transferred to you or you squatted on abandoned land for N years: in both cases it becomes yours.
It's also entirely possible for a judge to just change the records because they don't like them. It's pretty common in Texas to see deed restrictions removed if the local government doesn't want them on there for example.
But at least in some places in the US that's actually just a log of some kinds of transactions (sales and mortgages): you don't have a normalized field in a database somewhere that spits out "this person owns this spot" instead you have to build up from each individual transaction- plus there are transactions that don't take place on the log, e.g. deaths and inheritance or marriage/divorce that could take place outside the purview of the county clerk.
e.g. a married couple buys a house, then one of them dies, and the will is recorded in a different state and leaves their property to their kids rather than the spouse, that sort of update would not be recorded in the county clerk's office in my state.
> at least in some places in the US that's actually just a log of some kinds of transactions
That's true--but as I pointed out just now in response to another post, since there is no single government having jurisdiction over the entire world, there is always the possibility of events happening outside a given jurisdiction that affect the ownership of property in that jurisdiction. No system of records in a jurisdiction can completely prevent that.
Database mistakes on entry happen in Torrens. Rarer, but not unheard of. Tasmanian "owned" and lived on block for decades, when sold found they'd owned the one next door. There's a critical role in acceptance where somebody as agent has to say yay or nay and a Queensland couple had the agent say the wrong outcome when the real owner didn't consent and it went to the high court if I recall.
Mostly, each county has its own registry. (In some cases, there is a statewide registry.) This works, because each parcel of land is clearly in one particular county.
I wonder why a commercial entity that registers ownership / titles for free, and bills for checking, did not spring up. Clearly there is moneyed demand for certainty about title rights, and if you can provide certainty (because the last deal was registered with you), it may be a more desirable product than mere insurance.
It’s turtles all the way down, though — how do you know that last deal had clear title? At some point you’re going to want insurance anyway.
In any case, the US system is already that the government records ownership (not for free, but for a small recording fee) and the title company charges for checking, and for insurance in case they get it wrong.
As just one example
of how it can go wrong, here in Seattle it’s common to find out your lot is nine inches smaller than you thought because surveying technology is a lot better now than it was when your deed was written in 1908.
It's complicated. I live on a parcel of a very old property by US standards (early 1800s) that was subdivided shortly before I bought it. Without going into all the details, my neighbor who also lives on a parcel of the original land had a survey done and it turned out there were some significant incursions into other properties.
And we're not talking inches.
But, yeah, even inches (or any liens) can be an issue when it comes time to sell.
The trick with title theft is they target property not closely watched as the author noted, but also worth roughly the legal costs the rightful owner will incur undoing the fradulent transfer.
Prison is crime university and ID theft and related crimes are high yield low risk crimes.
The system doesn't care and such title thefts have been increasing for 15-20 years already
That depends on the state. I live in Iowa where the state records the transaction and verifies everyone's identity. Almost nobody has title insurance because there is nothing to insure. Every other state I've lived in though isn't as good about checking ID and you need title insurance (who is very good about checking id)
That is more or less how title insurance started back in the day.
In 1800 land was sold in person only by people who knew each other, in front of other witnesses who knew everybody in town. It worked great, which is why some states (I assume like CT) never bothered with a registry. In the mid 1800s as land out west started opening up for settlement (skip the whole bad treatment of the natives) investors "out east" wanted to invest in land and ran into a problem: they didn't want to go out to the land, but they knew scams existed so they started hiring trusted people to travel instead and verify they property owner was really the person they were buying from. Some states have a registry and so you don't need that, the state tracks owners and verifies the people buying/selling really are who they say they are.
Yet another example where "we can't have nice things" because entrenched businesses profit from keeping things not-nice. Title Insurance shouldn't even be a thing. This should be solvable by a database.
For identity theft, I think at this point it depends on where you set the bar. I've never had someone clean out my checking account or anything truly large, but my wife and I have had fraudulent charges on our credit cards several times as they've been leaked out one way or another. I would not "identify" as a "identity theft victim" per se if you asked me out of the blue, because compared to some of what I've heard about, I've had nothing more than minor annoyances come out of this. But yeah, I'd guess that it's fair to say that at this point most people have had at least some sort of identity-related issue at some point.
Different people understand "theft of identity" in different ways. If someone is impersonating you on the internet, or steals your credit card info and makes purchases on your behalf, that probably qualifies.
As for the nature of the scam, there are different levels of this. Most likely, the mark is the buyer / the escrow agency.
I once had a visit from cops about dodgy cheques I had been writing. Weirdly they were more ready to believe I hadn't written the cheques, than the were about me not leaving my chequebook at a brothel I hadn't visited.
The last time I wrote a cheque I had to cross out the 19 to write in the year. I think they only gave up on that line of questioning when I provided enough evidence to say that the bank had not given me any chequebooks to lose.
I still don't really know what happened there, the best that I can think of is someone with access to the mechanism to print chequebooks was running off 'replacements' for random accounts and then passing them on to people. I'm guessing it counts as identity theft.
Identity theft is not helped by processes that demand certainty and expediency causing pressure on employees to provide both even when they are not available. In a similar credit card issue with my partner, after all of the mess of departments trying to make it other departments' problems, my partner received an email saying that; in accordance with the phone conversation, the issue had been resolved. Having had no such phone conversation this caused a bit of panic, but upon contacting the bank they said that they had tried calling but there was no answer, but they were not allowed to resolve the issue unless they had directly spoken to the customer, so she just wrote that in, otherwise it would keep on causing problems down the line.
On the other hand I have leveraged such processes to my advantage to essentially steal my own identity. For a long time I possessed no photo-id, It was actually buying a house that proved to be the intractable problem that forced me to get a passport (I also wanted to travel) . There were numerous things that required photo ID to exist even if they had not laid eyes on it themselves. It seems rather odd to me, but somehow just the idea that I have it seems enough. Luckily I was once in a situation where I needed photo ID at a time when there was sufficient context to prove my identity by other means. A staff member fudged the system to make it work. That resulted in me acquiring a form of non-photo ID that had been recorded as being verified by photo ID. I leveraged that as a form of pseudo proof-of-photo-id for a number of years.
I have heard of title theft but I imagine it is more prominent is areas where an attorney is not required to process the sale of a house. Some states allow "title companies" to handle this process.
I'm not well versed, just passing along what I've heard from people over the years.
I have always heard the best way to make sure your title can't be stolen is to have a loan against the house so that a bank is involved. As long as a bank is involved, there are numerous additional hoops for something like that.
I have had my identity stolen [at least] three times in the last 15 years:
* OPM Hack
* Target Hack
* Equifax Hack
I say "at least" because there have been more, but I just started ignoring them after a while. I also had it stolen back in the late 1990s; and, thinking back, that was crazy for that time period.
If you broaden the definition of "stolen identity" to "someone trying to scam either you or someone else by using details on your identity" (which this story more or less is) I think a fair many of us can claim this experience.
They're not trying to transfer ownership. They're trying to scam people out of the earnest money before a title search (ie ownership verification) happens.
Titles are very decentralized; they are likely modestly-competently managed at the county level, of which there up to 254 per state (Texas).
And identity theft is also very easy in the US. It happened to an old in my family. The state dmv happily mailed a replacement license to a completely different state without so much as checking with the person whose license it is. Just for the asking. It's absurd.
So you’re from a different country from the author and don’t know how systems work here but you’re going to judge them for having their identity stolen? Maybe if you actually had any first hand experience you’d be able to muster some empathy. Yea things are decentralized here because we have 50 different states, many more counties, and health insurance is through a mish mash of many insurers and health providers. We are all regularly asked for the exact information needed to steal identity for basic stuff. I got a new dentist last month who has my date of birth, ssn, and home address. I’m going to tell him to stuff it and find a better dentist by, what? Calling around and asking if they require an ssn?
I have also never been the victim of identity theft but if you live here you would know luck plays a major role, always.
If you want to marinate in the superiority of you home country you are welcome to. Maybe don’t post on foreign message boards then.
Update - just tonight got a letter from a company called Conduent disclosing my medical billing records were compromised more than a year ago. Offering me “free” credit monitoring.
I know people who have bought the land they want to retire on now. (if they will or not is a different question, but that is the current plan). I know people who own hunting land that they visit one weekend a year. There are people who own land to lease to a local farmer - many farmers have too much money tied up in land and want to lease some of it from someone else to spread the risks.
If the land is expensive you wouldn't let it sit, but there is a lot of land that isn't very valuable that you can just own if you feel like it.
They inheritted it and have been lazy, they bought it for an investment, they bought it because they might want to build their retirement home on it, etc. Plenty of reasons why.
See I can understand this. e.g. a family asset for children, a property to build a retirement home on, a hunting property, or simply a real investment.
Owning a vacant lot far from where you live seems to come with some risks. In Hawaii, a woman found out that a house was built on the wrong lot and inspectors missed it until the completed house was being sold. I'm curious if there are other proactive measures folks could take to ensure that doesn't happen to their land.
> He gave me the standard line: 2-3 weeks if I hear from anyone.
> I never heard from anyone.
What is the FBI doing if they're not working on cases like this or domestic terrorism/mass shootings? We continue to have both classes of crimes in droves.
Because a lot of scammers are overseas in countries that either won't extradite and/or cooperate with investigators. Why focus on those cases when no one will face justice?
But if you do nothing, it enables people in countries that DO extradite and cooperate to get in on the fun, too. I guess that's just being nice to our allies.
The FBI does not have a mandate to investigate all reported crimes. AFAIK, no law enforcement agency does. They triage the reports, and most reports don't get investigated.
Most mass shootings don't have a lot of the FBI to investigate. The perpetrator often dies on site, so they can't be charged with anything. FBI will likely investigate if there were any co-conspirators, and may work with ATF to determine how the perpetrator obtained the firearm(s). Many times we hear that the perpetrator was "on the FBI's radar", but most of the time, there was no unlawful conduct before the shooting, so what are they supposed to do?
You end up investigating it yourself and they still don’t care. Definitely changed my view of the cops when we got robbed by our neighbor in Buffalo, NY
Since you've discovered law enforcement isn't interested in enforcing the law, you need to set up your own sting and get the scammer to show up where you can arrest them after they commit a crime in your presence.
In the US identity theft is easier than in other countries because financial transactions are designed to be convenient, not safe. You can sell a property you own, or move your entire Fidelity savings to another bank, all without showing up in person.
> Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life.
Is there a term for this deceitful language tactic? “Everybody knows that…” “It’s obvious that…” I think this one aggravates me the most because I feel targeted and lumped in with a group I’ve put effort into not being a part of.
Definitely raised my eyebrow. I assume he was being tongue in cheek. Reminds me of this copypasta:
“PROTIP: if you own a gun over a year without negligent discharging at least once, you aren't handling it enough. NDs are a natural part of handling weapons, just like tweaking your back is part of weightlifting and car accidents are part of driving. I ND several times a year because I actually HANDLE and know how to USE my weapons. It makes me a better firearms handler and marksman, and it's a small part of the price you pay in the sheepdog lifestyle Simple fact is, the "safety mentality" will build mental blocks in your head that will get you killed. You need to be comfortable putting your finger on the trigger and pointing the gun wherever you want no matter the time, place, or status of the weapon. Taking time to check whether the gun is loaded whenever you pick one up will serve to make you hesitate in a personal defense scenario”
A friend owned farm land in India, he moved to Canada.
The property deed was in his name.
Someone in India, with fraudulent documents "sold" his land.
He only came to know about it when he next visited India. Unfortunately he could not do much.
There are people who will actively look through property records - if the person is not a local resident ( lives internationally ), then they are prime targets.
This was a decade ago - things have gotten a lot better with digital records and India's Universal ID system. But I did not realize, something like this was possible in the US.
This is very prevalent in South Africa, to the point there is a legal cottage industry around verifying original documents vs counterfits (down to fingerprint testing, chemical analysis of inks).
For years now I have been regularly receiving unsolicited offers to buy 560 Bluefields Street SE, an undeveloped lot in Palm Bay, Florida. Whether the land is actually for sale, I have no idea; I've never been anywhere near the place, and cannot imagine why anyone would believe I owned land there. I wish I could somehow redirect the speculators who won't stop pestering me to scammers like the ones in this tale, so they would leave me in peace and all go harass each other instead.
I suspect that the speculators are scammers anyway: they never respond to my questions.
Check who used to own your place and who owns that lot now and see if any names line up.
I still receive occasional postcards from real estate mogul wannabes for a property out in Colorado (I'm in PA). The previous owners of our house moved to Colorado after they sold us their house, and I assume their name is linked to our address in some gray-market/online DB. Why they wouldn't just send purchase offers direct to the house in CO instead of what they think is the owner's primary address (ours) I don't know, but I'm sure they fire off thousands of these things and don't really care how many are accurate.
> He also provided a fake email for my brother: alexanderedwardenenson@out-look.com. Notice the subtle misspelling — “Benenson” without the second “n” in the email, and the hyphenated “out-look.com” domain.
Surely you meant "'Benenson' without the “b” in the email, and the hyphenated 'out-look.com' domain"?
This is interesting! A fraudulent deed on your title doesn’t change rights, but it might require you to clarify them in court, which is costly and inconvenient. Traditional title insurance only covered addressing clouds on title that existed when you acquired, meaning post-acquisition clouds would be your problem, but supposedly there is an enhanced coverage that title insurance companies offer as well, and the decision to surface the difference (at least where I live) lands with the closing attorney… who isn’t actually required to do or say anything about this….
I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with the article. A real estate agent selling your land on behalf of someone that isn't you is roughly analogous to a bank giving credit in your name to someone who isn't you. Either way, someone who isn't you got scammed by someone else who also isn't you, but somehow this is your problem.
This doesn't make sense, earnest money would be in escrow until the title clears. The scammer would never have access to the earnest money, nor would it ever get transferred to them unless the buyer took too long to close, or didn't come up with funds?? Like the title company would almost have to be involved for this to work.
The title is often actually transfered, and it is a mess to clean up.
You could walk into a court house and submit paperwork for filing, that transfers the title - all without any kind of sale or verification. It happens.
Hmm, I guess you technically just need to convince a notary that you're the seller and with virtual closings/ mobile notaries I guess that's probably pretty easy.
But still the scammer would never see the earnest money, unless the buyer backed out outside of an option period for whatever reason. Presumably they wouldn't if the land is cheap, and they've agreed to pay cash and put earnest money down.
Well yes, I assume that too. But the article says they'll pocket the earnest money which makes zero sense. Probably another example of someone incapable of writing an article by themselves and used an LLM.
>"7. If they get farther they’ll pocket the earnest money deposit which would have been significant in my case."
The global freight carrier storefronts around me all have notary services. I used them to notarize the documents from my last home sale; they glanced at my ID to the extent that they checked it matched the name on the paperwork, and signed off on it.
Yeah I wonder if this entire "scam" is a scammer's urban legend, where one scammer brags that they successfully executed it and all the rest try it a few times and eventually give up. Sort of like the search for pirate gold.
There's a pretty interesting Japanese show called Tokyo Swindlers that covers some real estate fraud in Tokyo. Not particularly realistic as far as I know but I enjoyed it.
I have had people show up at my house to ask if it was for rent, based on a fake post on Facebook using photos from Zillow from before my home was sold.
My realtor helped me get the photos taken down, but the Facebook ads for it are up to this day. Facebook completely ignores any and all attempts by me to report this malfeasance -- even though these ads literally have my personal home address on them!
It's a huge safety risk to me and not due to anything I did whatsoever; all I did was buy a house that was on the market and then move into it. It's a nightmare.
I would contact Facebook legal directly with documents showing the problem. Legal’s job is always to minimize liability for the company, and they have levers they can pull in any organization, no matter how “hyper scale” they claim to be.
Bonus points for figuring out the correct language to use to imply repercussions for failure to act without any actual threats. Patio11 has written about similarly worded letters with regards to debt collections and banking, and I know that there are all kinds of magic incantations in law for all kinds of transgretions.
"Patio11" itself is a magic incantion for your friendly neighborhood LLM, along with "dangerous professional". You can use these to prompt for suitable language in the email, as well as other courses of action.
This is good advice and probably an avenue I need to explore, thank you.
Facebook admits around 10% of their ads are fraudulent. I think it's much higher.
The scam is even larger than you see and exploits missing children reports. There are huge automated scam networks that post missing children reports then get people to share them. Then once the post/ad gets traction they change it to a listing of a house that is auto pulled from public information. They then use that to scam people.
PleasantGreen has a series on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uud0wTAOxSc
What is the point of listing a house that isn’t for sale, though?
Probably collecting application fees from people interested in renting it.
What about sinking 3 2x4s into the ground and nailing a 4x8 sheet of plywood with a tastefully painted sign indicating the property is not for sale?
It won't stop everyone but any realtor doing due diligence will likely see it. If is lasts long enough, it will show up on Google street view as well.
A motivated attacker need only don a green safety vest and hard hat, then roll up with a white pickup truck, place some orange safety cones and take down the sign with a chainsaw.
The point is that nearly all of the people doing this don't even live in the country where the land is being sold from. A simple sign would probably be quite effective
True, but you can still do a confused deputy attack. The fraudster hires a property manager, informs them that they would like to remove the sign because they wish the list the property for sale. Either that or they con a realtor they're working with into doing it. The unknowing realtor, eager for the commission, knows a guy who can take it down.
There's always something that can happen in any scenario. Social engineering, hiring locals, deeper forms of identity theft, or worse. The possibilities never hit 0, they just become a lot less profitable (and a lot riskier) a scam to try to run.
Yes, locks aren’t there to prevent the determined thief. They are for the 99% of other opportunists that will move on to an easier target immediately when they see your lock is harder to defeat
For those like me who didn't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confused_deputy_problem
Who's paying for it? Are they working for free?
The realtor might pay for it or even do it themselves. It would take 5 minutes with a reciprocating saw. Or the scammer tells the realtor "never mind that" and the realtor tells the buyer.
No, but paying someone $300 is cheap when you hope to get a check for several hundred thousand in a few months. (even if the scam is only to get the earnest money that is still a $300 investment for the final thousand or two you make - with very little work)
That's a lot of work plus money transfer paper trail for something like this.
Note that in the article, the author says how the scammers do everything to avoid having to show up in person. That's because they are in a different country and try to commit the scam without setting foot in the US.
1. Author lost me at his first sentence: "Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life." I am careful and aware of this possibility, but AFAIK I have not experienced this, nor have "most people" I know. o_O Crazy times.
2. I don't even understand how a title transfer could happen without verifying ownership. Is the title system in the USA decentralized or that much different than elsewhere? i.e. Torrens-style
> Is the title system in the USA decentralized or that much different than elsewhere?
As with most things both law-related and US-related, it depends. This type of scam would not work in the majority of states due to various laws, regulations, and bookkeeping (it would be nearly* impossible to sell land you don’t own in California for example).
There are other states (and countries - I’m looking at you Canada) where fraudulent documentation and virtually non-existent title checks allow this kind of fraud to persist.
[*] yes - virtually, not completely. It can happen, but the laws are set up such that the land owner will retain their land, the title fraud victim will be made whole financially by a title insurance company. What this means in practice is that title insurance companies make sure every transaction is legitimate and people don’t have to worry about it.
I'm equally careful and aware. Years ago, now, I discovered that someone in New Mexico (if I recall correctly) was working under my Social Security number. That was likely someone not authorized to work in the US writing random digits on an I9 form. No amount of care will protect against that.
It wasn't easy to clear up, either. I'm fortunate that a close friend worked (at the time) for the SS administration, and was able to do basically all of the leg-work for me: I just had to sign a few forms he sent me. Someone not equally connected would have had a much harder time.
I'm also painfully aware that effectively every scrap of everyone's personal data has been repeatedly leaked online. I doubt that any amount of care has much to do with whether or not I'll be targeted at some point in the future.
>That was likely someone not authorized to work in the US writing random digits on an I9 form.
I used to work a job years ago with lots of people who snuck in here. In order to get the job they needed to provide a social. Not having any idea wtf a social security number was, just that they needed one, it was a relief when someone they lived with or met on the street informed them that xyz at location abc will sell you one for $100.
That's one spot where the identity theft rubber meets the road. And practically everyone's social has been leaked by now.
Leaked? Isn't it used in the open basically like for everything including student IDs?
This was once common but is exceedingly rare these days. I'm sure exceptions exist, but nearly all Americans now treat this as a Very Secret Number.
LOL.
Every single $&@ doctor's intake form: "We'd like to have you SSN".
I remember a friend's boyfriend lost his wallet in mexico.
she said the next few years he got many tax returns, apparently several people using his legitimate ssn.
does that mean someone was paying into your social security, essentially boosting your benefit amount when the time comes?
If you don't dispute it, yes. However, if you don't dispute it, IRS knows about it as well and will be asking for their cut. Generally, the benefit increase is not worth higher taxes.
I'm surprised I haven't had more problems with identity theft. Equifax handed all our financial information to criminals a decade ago. Then last year the US government handed all our financial information to a con man.
In the dark old days before Apple Pay, where it was common in America to hand your credit/debit card to some rando at a restaurant and have them disappear with it for a few minutes, about once a year my bank would call me to ask if I'd been using my card in some far-off locale:
"Hi! Are you in Tijuana?"
"Not since 1993. Why? What's up?"
"So you didn't just try to buy gasoline at a PEMEX there?"
"Nope, I'm in San Francisco as speak."
"OK, thanks! We'll get a new card out in the mail to you."
That's a pretty low bar for identity theft, but I think it's defensible.
[delayed]
I've been using a debit card since the Dubya administration and I have never had someone use my card after I ate at a restaurant. I assume you live in a big metro area?
In Texas about a decade ago there was a criminal enterprise out of Houston that was putting swimmers on gas station pumps all over the state. Little towns, big towns, country gas stations. My now wife got hit that way.
[delayed]
I am, but some of these events were when I was traveling through smaller Midwest towns. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to it.
In any case, it hasn't happened again since I started using tap to pay whenever possible.
You must have been going to some very shady restaurants. I still hand off my credit card to a rando. I did it today. I did it last weekend. I've never had this problem.
I had my corporate card get cloned by the Wendys at Seatac airport, about 10 years ago. Do you consider that to be a sketchy restaurant? Why are you victim blaming?
I had not used the card in several weeks. Coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Wendys was the only purchase I made that day. ~4 hours later my card was declined when checking in to my hotel in LA. Called their security department, they wanted to know whether I had authorized a $4000 purchase at a Best Buy in Dallas.
Yeah I agree. Not only do I hand off my card, literally everyone I know does so. None have ever had problems. I'm not saying that such fraud never happens, because it obviously does happen. But I don't think it's so overwhelmingly common as is being claimed here.
This source[0] is hardly unbiased, so take this with a heavy dose of "citation needed", but it claims:
> 62 million Americans had fraudulent charges on their credit or debit cards last year alone, with unauthorized purchases exceeding $6.2 billion annually.
However, that jibes with other numbers I've seen.
https://www.security.org/digital-safety/credit-card-fraud-re...
This exact thing happened to me once at the hotel bar in the Santa Clara Convention Center / Hyatt Regency Santa Clara.
Not especially, I don't think. It's incredibly common according to everything I see online.
I guess I'm just lucky.
Unlike most common law jurisdictions, the United States doesn't have a central land registry due to lobbying from the title insurance industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#United_States
No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry because that is not an enumerated power of the federal government. The individual states have sovereignty over their own land and each has its own system for land registration. The article you linked to even names several states that have a partial Torrens title system.
The claim that the title insurance industry is the reason for lack of adoption of Torrens title schemes is uncited, and immediately followed by descriptions of several cases where Torrens title was adopted (often poorly) and later abandoned.
> No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry because that is not an enumerated power of the federal government.
I think you misunderstood the post you were replying to. Torrens title was invented in Australia. Just like in the US, land titles are a state responsibility in Australia not a federal one. But each state has a central statewide land registry which is the authoritative source of truth for land ownership. By contrast, US states hold land title records in a decentralised way (at the local government level not the state level), and those records aren’t legally decisive.
Most common law jurisdictions have centralised land titles, but often centralised at one level below the national government.
"No, the United States doesnt have a central land registry [..]"
Fascinating, how is ownership established if there is no single source of truth?
I feel the answer to this is also crucial to understanding OP. It could be a minor annoyance or the real possibility to lose your land.
patio11 wrote a bunch about this: (https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/working-title-insuran...)
> how is ownership established if there is no single source of truth?
Oh, boy, let me tell you it is very disconcerting to pay a title company to do a search of legal records on a property, and the only guarantee they offer in some states is that "we didn't find anything suspicious but there is no guarantee that someone from the past won't pop up with a better claim to ownership. You can't hold it against us if that happens." How is it that most people making the biggest purchase of their lives are going along with that? I'm definitely not okay with it, but sometimes you can't buy property without accepting it- no title company will offer a stronger guarantee.
For details, I'm talking about how in some states the Special Warranty Deed is the standard for real estate purchases: https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-is-a-special-warrant.... A title company will guarantee that the current seller hasn't entered any agreements that might legally obligate you (such as offering the property as collateral for an outstanding loan), but they are very clear that actions of previous owners are not included in this guarantee. So there is no single source of truth- we just hope that we're not part of the tiny percentage where the special deed is insufficient.
Edit: for context, there is a distinction between title insurance and the deed itself, but the title company is only offering insurance on the deed, so if the deed only covers the previous owner then the insurance only covers that too.
I was getting ready to debate you, but I'll admit that I'm mostly wrong about title insurance.
Special warranty deeds only cover the current seller, but title insurance can defend against prior ownership claims. I will note that just because title insurance guarantees they will defend against ownership claims, they don't guarantee it will be settled in a particular way. There's a theoretical possibility that an agreement can't be reached that keeps you in the house you thought you bought legally- like in this story the buyers got their money back but didn't keep the house that wasn't theirs https://www.thetitlereport.com/Articles/Title-Insurance-at-W...
> I will note that just because title insurance guarantees they will defend against ownership claims, they don't guarantee it will be settled in a particular way.
Of course, insurance doesn't guarantee you won't have a covered loss. Insurance compensates you if you have a covered loss.
When I've purchased real estate with title insurance, the offer from the title company has been pretty specific about what risks are covered, what risks are specifically not covered, and what the dollar limits are for covered losses. There's a lot of paperwork involved in purchasing real estate, but the title report and the title insurance offer are worth taking the time to read.
I've read the terms of title insurance and no, you can't hold them liable if it turns out you don't get the property as intended. It's basically useless.
> how is ownership established if there is no single source of truth?
There is: the county clerk in the county where the land is located.
No, the county clerk records aren’t a “single source of truth”. In the US system, it is possible to convince a court the county records are wrong, and order them overridden-which makes them not the single source of truth.
By contrast, in the Torrens system, whatever the government records say are final. If you are the innocent victim of a mistake by the government (or a fraud against it), the government has to compensate you; but you don’t actually get the land back if it has since been sold to an innocent purchaser.
> in the Torrens system, whatever the government records say are final
First, it doesn't seem like that's always the case, based on another post upthread talking about a land ownership case that went to the high court because of an error in the government's records.
Second, since there is no single government for the entire world, any government trying to implement a Torrens system is still going to face the problem of events happening outside its jurisdiction that its records do not and cannot contain, which affect ownership of property in its jurisdiction. So there cannot be a "single source of truth" in the sense you appear to be using the term, even in the Torrens system.
> is still going to face the problem of events happening outside its jurisdiction that its records do not and cannot contain
Excuse my German ignorance, but my understanding of how it works here is that unless the transfer is notarized, logged and recorded with the local authority, there has not been a legal transfer. So, by that definition of land ownership, no "events outside of its jurisdiction" can take place. Any such agreements become binding only upon their verified registration. A notary is responsible not only for confirming the transfer but also as independent consultant so neither party gets seriously ripped off. (And if they didn't, they would be in serious liability trouble.)
The "share of the database" is managed and owned by the local government, but its records are available all across Germany for authorities to look up. The vector database of lots is public, and there are procedures to request access to ownership documents for various purposes. The procedure is that when you want to buy a certain property, the owner confirms that you have permission to get the official record directly from the land registry, which then become the basis for any serious negotiations as what is recorded there is in fact the single source of truth.
In the three states where I've been involved in or observed real estate transactions, the system is similar in that a real estate transaction must be recorded with the county clerk to become effective. Generally documents are notarized to validate the identity of the signatories, and a notary is expected to confirm that the signatories understand what they are signing.
However, afaik, county clerks do not validate deeds; they will dutifully record any submitted deed if it follows the proper forms. If there is doubt about the validity of a conveyance, the whole history of recorded deeds for a property can be examined and potentially set aside if found to be fraudulent. Adverse possession laws can moot disputes about old conveyances though: after some time, someone who has "color of title", actual possession, and pays property taxes will gain actual title to the property, even if their original deed was deficient.
In a land registry system, the keeper of the registry generally validates that conveyances are approved by the current owner; this doesn't happen in a system of registered deeds. Deeds I've seen don't truly identify the grantors or grantees either. Typically just the first and last names. There are many people with my name, but if you have a deed for my house signed by the Pulitzer Prize winning author who shares my name, you can record it even though it's not actually valid.
Yes, it does sound like typical German bureaucracy to make events like death outside the jurisdiction impossible unless the deceased has obtained prior approval to kick the bucket. :)
Well, I do enjoy the layers of protection implemented here. It sounds like you wouldn't?
The record from the land registry includes things like wayrights for third parties, known ground contaminations, utilities/water/power lines etc. -- all very relevant to me as a potential buyer. I did enjoy the notaries explanations of various aspects, which went beyond reading the contract out loud and making sure we verbally understood what we were going to sign. The process also forces both parties to have written copies of everything prior to the final meeting, which provides another chance to let it sink in and potentially reconsider -- which in our case, we did. Also, they're really trained to verify IDs, not like a random clerk in some liquor store.
I understand one can experience it as "bureaucracy" and "annoyance" in their individual case, but then I wonder how much such people consider the bigger picture and what the benefit of all of it really is, for their own and for societies sake, and what kind of shitshow it would turn into if we got rid of all the "bureaucracy" -- such as described in the very blogpost here.
Even if I (wrongly?) assume I am always on top of things and I will not get ripped off ever, only so-called stupid people will, I really don't need more angry people who fell for scams or made quick decisions that they regret or whose identity got 'stolen' around me/on public streets/in bars. If it was for me, we could add even more such layers of protection, which you seem to see only as "(unnecessary) bureaucracy"?
In the Torrens system, if you do not register the transfer of property with the government, then the transfer hasn't happened. So whatever else happens in the rest of the world doesn't matter (at least, unless the land itself is annexed by another government).
(And, from similar cases in the UK which has this system, if the land registry fucks up the transfer is still final and this has been upheld by the court, the government may just be liable for damages)
> In the Torrens system, if you do not register the transfer of property with the government, then the transfer hasn't happened.
This is also true of county clerks in the US: any transfer of property in the county has to be recorded on a deed that is submitted to the county clerk and kept on file by them. Otherwise it hasn't happened.
> if the land registry fucks up the transfer is still final
This is the part that might not be the same in all US jurisdictions (though it appears it is the same in some, someone posted upthread about Iowa having a system like this).
FWIW even in the US system the courts usually won't order someone off land they are living on or using even if this were the case. At worst they would order compensation be paid - which is what title insurance actually covers.
Many states have a statute of limitations anyway. If you live on the land and pay the property taxes for N years everything else becomes irrelevant. Either the title was transferred to you or you squatted on abandoned land for N years: in both cases it becomes yours.
It's also entirely possible for a judge to just change the records because they don't like them. It's pretty common in Texas to see deed restrictions removed if the local government doesn't want them on there for example.
But at least in some places in the US that's actually just a log of some kinds of transactions (sales and mortgages): you don't have a normalized field in a database somewhere that spits out "this person owns this spot" instead you have to build up from each individual transaction- plus there are transactions that don't take place on the log, e.g. deaths and inheritance or marriage/divorce that could take place outside the purview of the county clerk.
e.g. a married couple buys a house, then one of them dies, and the will is recorded in a different state and leaves their property to their kids rather than the spouse, that sort of update would not be recorded in the county clerk's office in my state.
> at least in some places in the US that's actually just a log of some kinds of transactions
That's true--but as I pointed out just now in response to another post, since there is no single government having jurisdiction over the entire world, there is always the possibility of events happening outside a given jurisdiction that affect the ownership of property in that jurisdiction. No system of records in a jurisdiction can completely prevent that.
Database mistakes on entry happen in Torrens. Rarer, but not unheard of. Tasmanian "owned" and lived on block for decades, when sold found they'd owned the one next door. There's a critical role in acceptance where somebody as agent has to say yay or nay and a Queensland couple had the agent say the wrong outcome when the real owner didn't consent and it went to the high court if I recall.
Torrens is great but CAP theory still applies.
Mostly, each county has its own registry. (In some cases, there is a statewide registry.) This works, because each parcel of land is clearly in one particular county.
The federal government never enumerated the power to manage a national credit agency and yet we have several.
The federal government doesn't manage any national credit agencies.
I wonder why a commercial entity that registers ownership / titles for free, and bills for checking, did not spring up. Clearly there is moneyed demand for certainty about title rights, and if you can provide certainty (because the last deal was registered with you), it may be a more desirable product than mere insurance.
It’s turtles all the way down, though — how do you know that last deal had clear title? At some point you’re going to want insurance anyway.
In any case, the US system is already that the government records ownership (not for free, but for a small recording fee) and the title company charges for checking, and for insurance in case they get it wrong.
As just one example of how it can go wrong, here in Seattle it’s common to find out your lot is nine inches smaller than you thought because surveying technology is a lot better now than it was when your deed was written in 1908.
It's complicated. I live on a parcel of a very old property by US standards (early 1800s) that was subdivided shortly before I bought it. Without going into all the details, my neighbor who also lives on a parcel of the original land had a survey done and it turned out there were some significant incursions into other properties.
And we're not talking inches.
But, yeah, even inches (or any liens) can be an issue when it comes time to sell.
The trick with title theft is they target property not closely watched as the author noted, but also worth roughly the legal costs the rightful owner will incur undoing the fradulent transfer.
Prison is crime university and ID theft and related crimes are high yield low risk crimes.
The system doesn't care and such title thefts have been increasing for 15-20 years already
That depends on the state. I live in Iowa where the state records the transaction and verifies everyone's identity. Almost nobody has title insurance because there is nothing to insure. Every other state I've lived in though isn't as good about checking ID and you need title insurance (who is very good about checking id)
But how do they verify your identity? Most places I've lived used nearly useless forms of identity verification
That is more or less how title insurance started back in the day.
In 1800 land was sold in person only by people who knew each other, in front of other witnesses who knew everybody in town. It worked great, which is why some states (I assume like CT) never bothered with a registry. In the mid 1800s as land out west started opening up for settlement (skip the whole bad treatment of the natives) investors "out east" wanted to invest in land and ran into a problem: they didn't want to go out to the land, but they knew scams existed so they started hiring trusted people to travel instead and verify they property owner was really the person they were buying from. Some states have a registry and so you don't need that, the state tracks owners and verifies the people buying/selling really are who they say they are.
Yet another example where "we can't have nice things" because entrenched businesses profit from keeping things not-nice. Title Insurance shouldn't even be a thing. This should be solvable by a database.
There is a database. The insurance covers things that aren't in the database. Claims are exceptionally rare, so it's pretty cheap.
For identity theft, I think at this point it depends on where you set the bar. I've never had someone clean out my checking account or anything truly large, but my wife and I have had fraudulent charges on our credit cards several times as they've been leaked out one way or another. I would not "identify" as a "identity theft victim" per se if you asked me out of the blue, because compared to some of what I've heard about, I've had nothing more than minor annoyances come out of this. But yeah, I'd guess that it's fair to say that at this point most people have had at least some sort of identity-related issue at some point.
Different people understand "theft of identity" in different ways. If someone is impersonating you on the internet, or steals your credit card info and makes purchases on your behalf, that probably qualifies.
As for the nature of the scam, there are different levels of this. Most likely, the mark is the buyer / the escrow agency.
I once had a visit from cops about dodgy cheques I had been writing. Weirdly they were more ready to believe I hadn't written the cheques, than the were about me not leaving my chequebook at a brothel I hadn't visited.
The last time I wrote a cheque I had to cross out the 19 to write in the year. I think they only gave up on that line of questioning when I provided enough evidence to say that the bank had not given me any chequebooks to lose.
I still don't really know what happened there, the best that I can think of is someone with access to the mechanism to print chequebooks was running off 'replacements' for random accounts and then passing them on to people. I'm guessing it counts as identity theft.
Identity theft is not helped by processes that demand certainty and expediency causing pressure on employees to provide both even when they are not available. In a similar credit card issue with my partner, after all of the mess of departments trying to make it other departments' problems, my partner received an email saying that; in accordance with the phone conversation, the issue had been resolved. Having had no such phone conversation this caused a bit of panic, but upon contacting the bank they said that they had tried calling but there was no answer, but they were not allowed to resolve the issue unless they had directly spoken to the customer, so she just wrote that in, otherwise it would keep on causing problems down the line.
On the other hand I have leveraged such processes to my advantage to essentially steal my own identity. For a long time I possessed no photo-id, It was actually buying a house that proved to be the intractable problem that forced me to get a passport (I also wanted to travel) . There were numerous things that required photo ID to exist even if they had not laid eyes on it themselves. It seems rather odd to me, but somehow just the idea that I have it seems enough. Luckily I was once in a situation where I needed photo ID at a time when there was sufficient context to prove my identity by other means. A staff member fudged the system to make it work. That resulted in me acquiring a form of non-photo ID that had been recorded as being verified by photo ID. I leveraged that as a form of pseudo proof-of-photo-id for a number of years.
I have heard of title theft but I imagine it is more prominent is areas where an attorney is not required to process the sale of a house. Some states allow "title companies" to handle this process.
I'm not well versed, just passing along what I've heard from people over the years.
I have always heard the best way to make sure your title can't be stolen is to have a loan against the house so that a bank is involved. As long as a bank is involved, there are numerous additional hoops for something like that.
I have had my identity stolen [at least] three times in the last 15 years:
* OPM Hack
* Target Hack
* Equifax Hack
I say "at least" because there have been more, but I just started ignoring them after a while. I also had it stolen back in the late 1990s; and, thinking back, that was crazy for that time period.
If you broaden the definition of "stolen identity" to "someone trying to scam either you or someone else by using details on your identity" (which this story more or less is) I think a fair many of us can claim this experience.
They're not trying to transfer ownership. They're trying to scam people out of the earnest money before a title search (ie ownership verification) happens.
Titles are very decentralized; they are likely modestly-competently managed at the county level, of which there up to 254 per state (Texas).
And identity theft is also very easy in the US. It happened to an old in my family. The state dmv happily mailed a replacement license to a completely different state without so much as checking with the person whose license it is. Just for the asking. It's absurd.
So you’re from a different country from the author and don’t know how systems work here but you’re going to judge them for having their identity stolen? Maybe if you actually had any first hand experience you’d be able to muster some empathy. Yea things are decentralized here because we have 50 different states, many more counties, and health insurance is through a mish mash of many insurers and health providers. We are all regularly asked for the exact information needed to steal identity for basic stuff. I got a new dentist last month who has my date of birth, ssn, and home address. I’m going to tell him to stuff it and find a better dentist by, what? Calling around and asking if they require an ssn?
I have also never been the victim of identity theft but if you live here you would know luck plays a major role, always.
If you want to marinate in the superiority of you home country you are welcome to. Maybe don’t post on foreign message boards then.
Update - just tonight got a letter from a company called Conduent disclosing my medical billing records were compromised more than a year ago. Offering me “free” credit monitoring.
I also wondered why someone would own an empty lot in another town for years on end and neither build on it nor sell it.
Buy low, sell high.
I know people who have bought the land they want to retire on now. (if they will or not is a different question, but that is the current plan). I know people who own hunting land that they visit one weekend a year. There are people who own land to lease to a local farmer - many farmers have too much money tied up in land and want to lease some of it from someone else to spread the risks.
If the land is expensive you wouldn't let it sit, but there is a lot of land that isn't very valuable that you can just own if you feel like it.
They inheritted it and have been lazy, they bought it for an investment, they bought it because they might want to build their retirement home on it, etc. Plenty of reasons why.
See I can understand this. e.g. a family asset for children, a property to build a retirement home on, a hunting property, or simply a real investment.
Optionality. There is also a lot of cheap land in the US, so it often isn't a large investment.
Somewhat common in the UK as well, example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-63392... (It took him 4 years to recover possession https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwygv79n8x1o)
Here you can register with the Land Registry and they will email you if any enquiries or attempted sales happen on your property: https://www.gov.uk/protect-land-property-from-fraud
Owning a vacant lot far from where you live seems to come with some risks. In Hawaii, a woman found out that a house was built on the wrong lot and inspectors missed it until the completed house was being sold. I'm curious if there are other proactive measures folks could take to ensure that doesn't happen to their land.
https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawaii-home-built-on-w...
What risk? She got a free house out of it!
(The house was ordered to be demolished, but the owner and the builder reached a confidential settlement and the house is still standing to this day)
After years of legal wrangling and headaches she came to a settlement that may or may not have been her originally preferred solution.
> He gave me the standard line: 2-3 weeks if I hear from anyone.
> I never heard from anyone.
What is the FBI doing if they're not working on cases like this or domestic terrorism/mass shootings? We continue to have both classes of crimes in droves.
They're busy planning domestic terrorism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...), entrapping the mentally ill (https://archive.vn/riFSI), etc.
In all seriousness, this is probably an international crime and they just do not have the resources to chase them all down.
Because a lot of scammers are overseas in countries that either won't extradite and/or cooperate with investigators. Why focus on those cases when no one will face justice?
But if you do nothing, it enables people in countries that DO extradite and cooperate to get in on the fun, too. I guess that's just being nice to our allies.
The FBI does not have a mandate to investigate all reported crimes. AFAIK, no law enforcement agency does. They triage the reports, and most reports don't get investigated.
Most mass shootings don't have a lot of the FBI to investigate. The perpetrator often dies on site, so they can't be charged with anything. FBI will likely investigate if there were any co-conspirators, and may work with ATF to determine how the perpetrator obtained the firearm(s). Many times we hear that the perpetrator was "on the FBI's radar", but most of the time, there was no unlawful conduct before the shooting, so what are they supposed to do?
They are busy assisting ICE with hunting down immigrants.
Having recently been the victim of burglary, twice, I was shocked and dismayed at the lack of response from the authorities...
You end up investigating it yourself and they still don’t care. Definitely changed my view of the cops when we got robbed by our neighbor in Buffalo, NY
You're just a citizen. Why would any of the three-letter agencies work on what you need?
Since you've discovered law enforcement isn't interested in enforcing the law, you need to set up your own sting and get the scammer to show up where you can arrest them after they commit a crime in your presence.
In the US identity theft is easier than in other countries because financial transactions are designed to be convenient, not safe. You can sell a property you own, or move your entire Fidelity savings to another bank, all without showing up in person.
> Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life.
Is there a term for this deceitful language tactic? “Everybody knows that…” “It’s obvious that…” I think this one aggravates me the most because I feel targeted and lumped in with a group I’ve put effort into not being a part of.
Definitely raised my eyebrow. I assume he was being tongue in cheek. Reminds me of this copypasta:
“PROTIP: if you own a gun over a year without negligent discharging at least once, you aren't handling it enough. NDs are a natural part of handling weapons, just like tweaking your back is part of weightlifting and car accidents are part of driving. I ND several times a year because I actually HANDLE and know how to USE my weapons. It makes me a better firearms handler and marksman, and it's a small part of the price you pay in the sheepdog lifestyle Simple fact is, the "safety mentality" will build mental blocks in your head that will get you killed. You need to be comfortable putting your finger on the trigger and pointing the gun wherever you want no matter the time, place, or status of the weapon. Taking time to check whether the gun is loaded whenever you pick one up will serve to make you hesitate in a personal defense scenario”
A friend owned farm land in India, he moved to Canada. The property deed was in his name.
Someone in India, with fraudulent documents "sold" his land.
He only came to know about it when he next visited India. Unfortunately he could not do much. There are people who will actively look through property records - if the person is not a local resident ( lives internationally ), then they are prime targets.
This was a decade ago - things have gotten a lot better with digital records and India's Universal ID system. But I did not realize, something like this was possible in the US.
This is very prevalent in South Africa, to the point there is a legal cottage industry around verifying original documents vs counterfits (down to fingerprint testing, chemical analysis of inks).
I wonder if you could take a lien against yourself, it would show up for any potential buyer...
For years now I have been regularly receiving unsolicited offers to buy 560 Bluefields Street SE, an undeveloped lot in Palm Bay, Florida. Whether the land is actually for sale, I have no idea; I've never been anywhere near the place, and cannot imagine why anyone would believe I owned land there. I wish I could somehow redirect the speculators who won't stop pestering me to scammers like the ones in this tale, so they would leave me in peace and all go harass each other instead.
I suspect that the speculators are scammers anyway: they never respond to my questions.
Check who used to own your place and who owns that lot now and see if any names line up.
I still receive occasional postcards from real estate mogul wannabes for a property out in Colorado (I'm in PA). The previous owners of our house moved to Colorado after they sold us their house, and I assume their name is linked to our address in some gray-market/online DB. Why they wouldn't just send purchase offers direct to the house in CO instead of what they think is the owner's primary address (ours) I don't know, but I'm sure they fire off thousands of these things and don't really care how many are accurate.
Needs to be a new HTTP status code to go along with 418. Never mind that it doesn't start with the right number.
Also I'm sure glad that scammer didn't manage to buy that cannon!
> He also provided a fake email for my brother: alexanderedwardenenson@out-look.com. Notice the subtle misspelling — “Benenson” without the second “n” in the email, and the hyphenated “out-look.com” domain.
Surely you meant "'Benenson' without the “b” in the email, and the hyphenated 'out-look.com' domain"?
Does title insurance cover it if the sale actually goes through?
Sadly, incredibly common. It's a shame we don't have better protections for this by now.
Here's another I remember reading recently. I feel sorry for both parties and not sure how I think that should be adjudicated...
https://www.businessinsider.com/property-fraud-lawsuit-fairf...
Is this something a title insurance could help with?
Title insurance protects the buyer. It doesn't protect the owner.
Also, as mentioned in another post, lobbying from title insurance companies is the reason the US doesn't have a central registry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#United_States
This is interesting! A fraudulent deed on your title doesn’t change rights, but it might require you to clarify them in court, which is costly and inconvenient. Traditional title insurance only covered addressing clouds on title that existed when you acquired, meaning post-acquisition clouds would be your problem, but supposedly there is an enhanced coverage that title insurance companies offer as well, and the decision to surface the difference (at least where I live) lands with the closing attorney… who isn’t actually required to do or say anything about this….
Another story of a title transfer scam: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/title-pirates/id290783...
Periodic reminder that "identity theft" is the financial system gaslighting you into thinking their poor decisions are your fault.
We don't even need the term "identity theft". We already have a perfectly good word for than: "fraud".
This is a Mad Libs autopilot reply which has nothing to do with the article.
I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with the article. A real estate agent selling your land on behalf of someone that isn't you is roughly analogous to a bank giving credit in your name to someone who isn't you. Either way, someone who isn't you got scammed by someone else who also isn't you, but somehow this is your problem.
That's why I downvoted and flagged it -- along with your content-free response.
This doesn't make sense, earnest money would be in escrow until the title clears. The scammer would never have access to the earnest money, nor would it ever get transferred to them unless the buyer took too long to close, or didn't come up with funds?? Like the title company would almost have to be involved for this to work.
The title is often actually transfered, and it is a mess to clean up.
You could walk into a court house and submit paperwork for filing, that transfers the title - all without any kind of sale or verification. It happens.
Hmm, I guess you technically just need to convince a notary that you're the seller and with virtual closings/ mobile notaries I guess that's probably pretty easy.
But still the scammer would never see the earnest money, unless the buyer backed out outside of an option period for whatever reason. Presumably they wouldn't if the land is cheap, and they've agreed to pay cash and put earnest money down.
The scammer isn't trying to get the earnest money, they are trying to get the full sale price.
Well yes, I assume that too. But the article says they'll pocket the earnest money which makes zero sense. Probably another example of someone incapable of writing an article by themselves and used an LLM.
>"7. If they get farther they’ll pocket the earnest money deposit which would have been significant in my case."
The global freight carrier storefronts around me all have notary services. I used them to notarize the documents from my last home sale; they glanced at my ID to the extent that they checked it matched the name on the paperwork, and signed off on it.
Yeah I wonder if this entire "scam" is a scammer's urban legend, where one scammer brags that they successfully executed it and all the rest try it a few times and eventually give up. Sort of like the search for pirate gold.
Much less on a property deal where identity and ownership are heavily scrutinized.
6. If questioned, they disappear.
Seems like this isn't really a problem? Who sells land without questions?
The FBI won't get involved unless it's politically advantageous.