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 leaked Facebook document showed they know which ads are fraudulent because the ad system is programmed to never show those ads to the ad regulators, and it's most of the ads.
I'm not sure I get the huge safety risk. You buy a property and you're in a public registry. There's no anonymity at that point in the US other than setting up trusts or other ownership screens.
First of all, like you say, those registries can have an LLC's name or the name of a trust, etc. It may not be my name. But some rando showing up doesn't know me, they want to occupy my house.
Second, those registries are much harder to find me in than a random Facebook Marketplace ad.
Third, those registries do not advertise that I am trying to sell my property or rent it out; there is no invitation to come to my home and approach me. I have literally had people show up at my door asking why I'm there if my house is for rent. Imagine if one of those people - as is common on Facebook Marketplace - was unhinged or dangerous, or got mad when I told them the truth.
It is a direct threat to my safety in a way that the mere record of my ownership of the property wouldn't be (if it had my name on it).
how much of your time do these visits take up, can you document it and then sue Facebook in small claims court for your time and effort? This seems a stretch but maybe it could be made to work, it could be amusing if so.
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
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.
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 debit and credit cards since long before the ‘dark old days’ ended (1992? 1993? Long before debit cards were a common thing), and I still hand my card to anyone who needs it to do their job. I’ve had identity theft happen a grand total of never.
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'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?
Reminds me of the carbon copies (actual carbon copies) some local car renter made. They wrote your risk on the carbon copy as a "reservation", carbon copied your CC onto it and stored it in a safe. Pretty much a list of ready-to-use cards if you got hold of them.
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.
> Unlike most common law jurisdictions, the United States doesn't have a central land registry due to lobbying from the title insurance industry.
These scammers will either (a) start with a stolen identity and see what land that person owns and try to sell it, or (b) find an interesting piece of land and steal that person's identity and pretend to be them.
In either case a 'definitive' database (or lack thereof) is not the problem.
Ontario and BC (e.g.) in Canada have a land registry:
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.
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.
> 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.
Though I think there's way less of this issue in Japan because there are a lot of gov't-involving procedures and record ownership in land ownership transfers making it quite hard to go all the way(and hey, even in the US you have title insurance), there was a bit of a wild case a couple years back where a fraudster sold a 5.5 billion yen piece of land to a major developer[0].
Fraud is always fun to look at because people are constantly looking for those little windows of trust that end up forming in these flows because otherwise everything would take months to execute upon.
So the scam here doesn't seem to be ACTUALLY selling the land--it's basically engaging a realtor long enough to get earnest money on the table, then to disappear. Although if they could go far enough to get an entire amount wired to them I'm sure they'd take it.
Since a lot of people are doing all cash (non-financed) deals lately, I could see how a scammer and a lax realtor could possibly scam an overzealous buyer out of the full amount.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
You can order legit cheques online from third party cheque printers to save money vs what banks charge for cheques, you don't need any insider access to get cheques printed.
> I don't even understand how a title transfer could happen without verifying ownership.
Centralized vs decentralized isn't relevant.
The issue is that nobody wants to have one of the icky humans in the loop because they have the temerity to ask to be paid a salary.
Consequently, everybody tries to set up systems where everything can be done online with no in-person interactions ever required. This works, sorta, until the fraudsters start figuring out the seams.
But because you would have to give some icky human cash, everybody is fighting tooth and nail to revert back to having any humans moderating the problems.
The correct solution is to call this kind of thing what it is--fraud--and treat it as such. And the proper point for the liability are the companies and agencies that do nothing to prevent the fraud and not all the poor slobs.
A couple of nice big payouts where banks or agencies have to cough up to make everybody whole due to their negligence and suddenly all the systems will get much more stringent.
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.
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 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.
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.
I grew up on a big property and when my parents moved, they divided the land and sold the part with the house with the idea that they might build a house on the empty land upon retirement.
I'm guessing at this point that they're not going to do that, so at some point I'll probably inherit some empty land.
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.
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 think these days the easiest thing is to take a HELOC loan backed by the property. Do not withdraw money from HELOC and pay the $125/year fee. This puts a lien on the property. (The article alluded to this solution by noting these scammers avoid properties with a mortgage).
It'll work in this area of the country (Connecticut, Massachusetts,) because this is a known scam and relators and attorneys know to keep an eye out for this.
The problem is that a 4x8 plywood sign will weather very fast in New England weather. You're better off following the article's suggestion of flagging the property with the court.
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
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.
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.
> Reynolds was in for yet another unwelcome surprise: The developer sued her for being “unjustly enriched” by the construction of the home on her land.
> The developers’ lawyer told SFGATE in March that Reynolds appeared to be taking advantage of the developer’s mistake. “Keaau Development Partnership is the only entity that has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of losses,” Peter Olson said. “She’s trying to exploit the situation to get money from my client and the other parties.”
I'm glad the judge laughed that one right out:
> The court has dismissed that case.
> “The clear motivation of KDP and PJC was to cut corners to reduce construction costs,” the ruling read. “... The encroachment on Lot 114 is so great that the Court finds it has caused the complete destruction of Ms. Reynolds' estate as it had been originally held and enjoyed.”
That's why such thing as "vacant land" shouldn't exist. Have a land -> do something on it. If you don't -> sell it to someone who do, or pay taxes that double every year.
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.
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).
Reminds me about what my uncle told me (not India though): As a foreigner or someone local out of the country for extended period you rent a caretaker and pay them enough so they don't leave the property unattended. And build a fence around it.
> 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
Readit News
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.
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.
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
Second, those registries are much harder to find me in than a random Facebook Marketplace ad.
Third, those registries do not advertise that I am trying to sell my property or rent it out; there is no invitation to come to my home and approach me. I have literally had people show up at my door asking why I'm there if my house is for rent. Imagine if one of those people - as is common on Facebook Marketplace - was unhinged or dangerous, or got mad when I told them the truth.
It is a direct threat to my safety in a way that the mere record of my ownership of the property wouldn't be (if it had my name on it).
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
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.
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.
she said the next few years he got many tax returns, apparently several people using his legitimate ssn.
This person could have been an illegal, but there is a non-zero chance you just both had the same one. It does happen, or at least did.
"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.
Anecdotes are worthless.
On the other hand, stolen credit cards were kept by the restaurant and they got a reward.
Nowadays I don't think there is ANY checking of whose card is being used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#United_States
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.
These scammers will either (a) start with a stolen identity and see what land that person owns and try to sell it, or (b) find an interesting piece of land and steal that person's identity and pretend to be them.
In either case a 'definitive' database (or lack thereof) is not the problem.
Ontario and BC (e.g.) in Canada have a land registry:
* https://www.ontario.ca/page/overview-land-registry
* https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/real-esta...
That hasn't stopped fraud (attempts):
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/three-charged-stolen-...
* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64547396
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.
Fraud is always fun to look at because people are constantly looking for those little windows of trust that end up forming in these flows because otherwise everything would take months to execute upon.
[0]:https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181121/p2a/00m/0na/00...
Since a lot of people are doing all cash (non-financed) deals lately, I could see how a scammer and a lax realtor could possibly scam an overzealous buyer out of the full amount.
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.
As for the nature of the scam, there are different levels of this. Most likely, the mark is the buyer / the escrow agency.
* 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.
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.
You can order legit cheques online from third party cheque printers to save money vs what banks charge for cheques, you don't need any insider access to get cheques printed.
Centralized vs decentralized isn't relevant.
The issue is that nobody wants to have one of the icky humans in the loop because they have the temerity to ask to be paid a salary.
Consequently, everybody tries to set up systems where everything can be done online with no in-person interactions ever required. This works, sorta, until the fraudsters start figuring out the seams.
But because you would have to give some icky human cash, everybody is fighting tooth and nail to revert back to having any humans moderating the problems.
The correct solution is to call this kind of thing what it is--fraud--and treat it as such. And the proper point for the liability are the companies and agencies that do nothing to prevent the fraud and not all the poor slobs.
A couple of nice big payouts where banks or agencies have to cough up to make everybody whole due to their negligence and suddenly all the systems will get much more stringent.
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.
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.
I'm guessing at this point that they're not going to do that, so at some point I'll probably inherit some empty land.
Deleted Comment
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.
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.
now you made banks interested in supporting these scams
The problem is that a 4x8 plywood sign will weather very fast in New England weather. You're better off following the article's suggestion of flagging the property with the court.
BTW: When these scams happen, you can sue for the irreplaceable value of trees removed, especially if you planned on keeping the lot wooded: https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/court-of-appeals/...
I live in Rochester, NY. Our weather is no better or worse if you are a sheet of plywood outside 24/7. It will last years.
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
https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawaii-home-built-on-w...
(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)
> The developers’ lawyer told SFGATE in March that Reynolds appeared to be taking advantage of the developer’s mistake. “Keaau Development Partnership is the only entity that has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of losses,” Peter Olson said. “She’s trying to exploit the situation to get money from my client and the other parties.”
I'm glad the judge laughed that one right out:
> The court has dismissed that case.
> “The clear motivation of KDP and PJC was to cut corners to reduce construction costs,” the ruling read. “... The encroachment on Lot 114 is so great that the Court finds it has caused the complete destruction of Ms. Reynolds' estate as it had been originally held and enjoyed.”
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.
> 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.
In all seriousness, this is probably an international crime and they just do not have the resources to chase them all down.
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?