Modern Day Land Scams
There is so much fraud in our world today and the scammers are finding new ways to steal from people. We have all heard about the different types of wire fraud in Real Estate. If you have not, you live under a rock or have not seen the news for the past few years. Since more systems have been put into place to make this more difficult and Buyers, Sellers, REALTORS and Title Companies have all started to catch onto the fraud, they have had to find new ways to steal from people.
The newest way that we are seeing, and I’m not going to give all of the details so no one tries this at home, is that they will reach out to a local Realtor and tell them they have a raw piece of land for sale. This is usually a younger Realtor that gets pulled into this but it has happened to me a few times. They typically have all of the correct lot info and HOA contacts, they will have all of the info on the seller and usually have an email address that at first glance would pass the sniff test of being accurate. We have even ran the phone numbers and emails through companies like Forewarn and don’t get any red flags.
Luckily this is not my first rodeo, I have been at this for over 18 years, and I know the area very well. I can usually ask the right questions to catch the scammer in a lie and that is the end of the conversation. The one that I dealt with this week, and the one that I had last year, were very prepared and if it was not for being able to find the real land owner on Facebook and contact them, I’m not sure I would have tripped up the fake sellers.
There are companies like Home Title Lock that we recommend. You can subscribe to it and it will help protect your title from fraud like this. Unfortunately, there are times that the sale has gone through and the scammers have gotten the Buyers’ money. If that happens, it is a long and difficult process to undo that fraud.
As a REALTOR you owe it to yourself, your company, and the public to make sure you are talking to the legal seller and that you do all the research that you can to prove that. At the end of the day, you have to trust your gut and if you don’t have a good feeling about the seller on the other end of an email or phone, you have to protect yourself and sometimes that means not taking a listing.
