A copy of your property deed costs $3 – this SoCal firm will do it for $89
latimes.com
latimes.com
I returned all of these envelopes filled to the max with random pieces of junk paper. BUT, I made sure that my name and address (or zip code) did not appear in anything that I sent back. If I understand the USPS rates correctly (https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm), each returned mail costs them $1.38. Maybe if enough people sent these envelopes back (with junk), the low hit rate compared to cost of the returned letters would make this business unprofitable.
'Oh gosh, wait a moment, I just realized that as soon as we fire the secret weapon it stops being a secret, that's like 99% of the value of it - we must forever abstain from firing the secret weapon so that we always maintain a position of power where we have a secret weapon we can fire - but golly gee willikers make sure our enemies never discover our secret weapon!'
It's that they had to pay for you sending that junk to them, which increases their costs. (But it would take a lot of people doing the same to make a dent.)
They will deliver an envelope stuffed with sand unless it exceeds the weight limits covered by that postage. (I know that second part from actual recent experience.)
For business reply envelopes (BRE) you only pay postage for the envelopes that are sent back and not the ones that are printed. If you're sending back something, chances are you're sending them an $89 check so it more than covers for postage cost. The envelope cost is marginal.
This is a time-honored way to piss off junk mailers.
The scam is done by crawling the public announcements of new registered companies. Then the scammer, also a proper company, sends out an "offer" for registration in their database. Also, be aware refusal to pay will result in deletion of the record and people won't be able to find the company in that particular database. Fees are payable within two weeks, wire transfer and bank details are included, and run between 400 and 800 Euro (at least the ones I got). One number I heard was that roughly a third of new companies pay at least one of these scammers. Crazy, right? Also legal because it is an "offer" for a "service"...
I didn't know... Sometimes I really wonder..
Ban fine print. Honestly. Anything that declares the correspondence is not official has to be in the same point size as the body of the text, separated out into it's own paragraph in plain no uncertain terms that the majority of adults could understand.
We had a very interesting conversation with the doc prep department when I moved everything to using high speed laserjet printers. "Which one is the original, now?" The end result was someone buying a large rubber stamp that read "Original." :-)
At some point, it became difficult to get a printer and paper that would work with that many imprints!
"they're identical. doesn't matter. but I got a stamp to tell you which one."
"they're identical. doesn't matter. but I got a stamp to tell you which one."
If you have a strict policy of "one version is the 'original' and the rest are 'copies'", then wording of the 'original' gets legal priority. Legal priority == much lower legal bills.
If you have a policy of "they are all the same", then when they are different, you have a nasty, expensive legal fight.
* wording
In Ireland you get this letter in 8 point font from a company with no phone number demanding 1000 euro for ground rent and threatening you with legal action....AND it turns out to be completely legitimate because The Earl of Blah Blah and the Archbishop of such and such owned your ground rent until 1978 (when the Irish government finally ended the feudal system) and they sold it to some shifty operator who now collects and you're in arrears on your 11 euro per year since then and they've added admin charges...oh and you can buy out your ground rent, but you have to fill out a 12 page form and make sure you don't pay them unless you've confirmed they're the sole rights holder and if you forget to pay and the lease expires (you know because the solicitor forgot to mention the 275 year lease was expiring or something) then they own your house OR you have to pay them 1/8th of the value to claw back the house you bought perfectly legitimately.
Mild hyperbole here.
England (and perhaps other places?) tried to fix this with Commondhold. The idea in Commonhold is pretty similar to Leasehold except that the Freehold of the 2D real property is held by a purpose made entity whose constituents are the owners of the properties contained in the Commonhold, so there can't be some dodgy offshore property holding company involved, between them the people who seem to own the place really do own it outright. Most likely they'll choose to outsource day-to-day management to a company which specialises just as the property holding company does, but as joint owners they have powers to fire that management company or demand to inspect its finances to see everything is done properly, and if somebody thinks they can do better (or has far too much free time on their hands) that's an option with consent of the other owners, it's nobody else's business.
Unfortunately Commonhold was not a success. The tax status means that you can sell say 12 flats on Leasehold for £100 000 each, and then also sell the Freehold to a holding company for say £60 000. But if you offer those 12 flats as Commonhold, leaving nothing else to sell, the buyers will be reluctant to part with £105 000 each even though there's a good chance that Freeholder will ask for say £1000pa ground rent, so they'd be clearly ahead after just five years.
So as a property builder it made no sense to sell Commondhold properties - the government didn't ban Leasehold for new properties, so Leasehold it is in almost every case.
Personally I value leasehold property as worthless. I wonder how many other people do? And how much this contributes to UK people being reluctant to live in flats?
As another poster pointed out many leaseholds today come with a share of freehold anyway.
It is standard practice in the US to hire a company to research any potential title problems before sale, and additionally, buy insurance to protect against potential issues that might not have been found.
Of course you can sue your solicitor if they failed in their duty during so-called conveyancing (generally a process that takes between 3 and 9 months depending on their level of total incompetence). But then again after 7 years you can no longer sue them...so depends how early these errors are spotted.
There is no need for deeds to _exist at all_ in 2019.
The government ends up as the authoritative decision maker on who owns real property, so rather than pretend these pieces of paper matter, just go to the horse's mouth and use government registration.
How does the US still have this quaint document based system like it's still the 19th century? Same reason ordinary working Americans have to fill out a bunch of paperwork for the IRS to tell them what they already know - lobbying. In this case from companies that make their money navigating the complicated property system or insuring against problems with it and know if it was simpler they'd be out of a job.
A fancy modern country might deploy a GIS to handle all of this down to the millimetre. For somewhere as old as the USA that's likely to cause more trouble than it saves, but a system like that in England, where registration is done but the question of who own this crack in the shared driveway is not resolved by that registration‡ would simplify the vast majority of property deals in the US.
The core trick is to make the registration in the government system de facto the truth - definitely beating any documents no matter who swears they're genuine, this takes some alignment work up front, but you only do it once and most conflicts discovered during alignment will be about land nobody is actually using, scrub land or abandoned mines that six people have identical deeds for as part of a decades old scam, that sort of thing - not homes, because a conflict about who owns your home would already have been resolved.
‡ If you start from deeds drawn up in an era when a boundary might be "From the old oak tree to the river" rather than "Here's the co-ordinates accurate to eight decimal places in the NAD83 datum" then the question of whether the fence put up in 1923 is on Alice's land or Bob's or if it's in fact neatly on the boundary and so belongs to them both is a matter that a court will have to settle if Alice and Bob can't manage to agree it amicably.
Every time I search for my bank's routing number, the first result that pops up is a fishy looking 3rd party website. The numbers are accurate (for now?), but it's super sketchy. My bank's results are three or four slots down the list.
I keep complaining and Google does nothing. It may just as well be an elevator "close door" button.
To your point about Google feedback, sadness, but unsurprising.
$1 if done online.
Because they pay Google and aren't actually illegal.
A better question is why Google puts ads at the top of search results.
You know the answer...
Of course, the only honest tactic would be an opt-in, but that would destroy the revenue the feature makes...
This would destroy a lot of companies..
I disapprove of it.
A lot of people can benefit from that Amazon discount regardless of a recent move. Plus Home Depot is super helpful if you moved into a house. There's always something that needs work.
$0 if done in person.
I suspect they implemented the fee since people as above are filing change of address forms from Address A to Address A just to get coupons mailed to them and the $1.05 covers the cost of mailing the coupons. It also, requiring a credit card, provides for a measure of identity verification and reduces fraud associated with fake address change filings.
> We use your email address to send your transaction confirmation or send a one-time reminder email if you do not successfully complete your transaction.
Ah, so it's not true, as was claimed above, that the USPS form gives your email to the companies so they can spam you.
They make this stuff look so official. They use IRS fonts. They print it on pink paper. They write "final notice" when that's meaningless. They have your PII from the public records and make it look like it's from your mortgage group.
That kind of business should be treated as fraud. Who knows how many elderly or otherwise have lost tons of money from these garbage "companies." They should be ashamed.
That’s not to say things evolve and regulation should keep up (or that it’s ineffective for its goals), but I don’t understand why there’s such a fervent backlash against it, particularly from the right. It largely feels fueled by those who wish to profit from its undermining, and one particular party has let it be known they’re open for business in that respect.
Did these concerns exist in say, the 1960s? 1910s?
Because it’s often both overreaching, ineffective, and/or harmful to unrelated things. See: the war on drugs, gay marriage until the last decade, etc, etc.
The more you do at the federal level, the more fallout it’s going to have and the harder it’s going to be to fix.
> and one particular party has let it be known they’re open for business in that respect.
This is a strawman to help delegitimize people who are against particular regulations for philosophical reasons. I don’t recommend repeating it if you want actual discussions. It’s like claiming most of the pro-choice movement is driven by the abortion industry.
And also looking for presorted first class postage. That's a huge giveaway that you're looking at trash.
Like, how could you not do the research yourself in advance?
I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn’t already have access to internet elsewhere to do their research.
Perhaps someone at the Apple Store is there to purchase a device that will give them access to the Internet which they don't currently have elsewhere?
You did have to apply in person.
And someone did create a page where you could pay $10 and they would wait in line for you.
So at least sometimes you are buying a real service.
Then with the new real ID thing I've heard some elder people had to rebuy their birth certificates because the DMV quit accepting the older ones.
Except that these materials can typically be printed out for free, and the letter makes every effort to appear to be a mandatory bill coming from a government agency.
It was a total scam, but it did make us be sure to get our labor posters hung up though. (We just asked our payroll provider to send them to us and they were free.)
EDIT: grammar.
I think also forcing them to link out to either the direct form or at least some page explaining how to submit the form directly to the government would also be a good idea in addition to forcing them to just show the base cost. Force them to provide an actual value add instead of just fleecing people looking for the correct way to do something.
While I agree, I also kind of expect that if you did this they would find the most difficult possible way to submit the form directly to the government that would still work (e.g. "to renew your car registration without using our quick and easy service, call the California DMV at [number] and request form REG 343. Fill in the form with your, vehicle identification number, make, model, year, and [87 more fields]. Fax the form to [fax number] or make an in-person appointment with the DMV").
How do they still exist and continue making the same thing? What's the point of this fine if it does not change anything?
A simple fix would be to dictate, through legislation, that you can't provide a government service such as a copy of your deed at a cost substantially above the cost the government is providing it at.
Not a permanent solution, but an effective shim until regulation catches up. "Department of Hotfixes"
Thankfully, increased privacy on WHOIS records have clamped down on these practices.
They are quite good at looking "official" though, and always have company names that you'd think private companies wouldn't even be permitted to use.
Given how long this has been going on, and given the EU's somewhat notorious legislative machine, it's also quite ridiculous that these scams haven't been outlawed yet.
I made a faux-website complaining about how easy it would be to create an official looking scam website, particularly how the entire county uses .org domain names.
Fake website: http://sanmateogov.org/
I'm actually more pissed at the OEM for giving these companies my information.
That said, if you have a particular source that you would like to direct me attention to, I'd be interested in knowing because none of the first few results seemed to have anything relating to your comment, beyond the already established fact that yes, they are scams.
If you'd like to know more, please feel free to email me (email in profile). I know someone who sells these products, and was asked to invest to scale up volume (politely declined after researching and reviewing materials provided for due diligence), so I have context that a resource like Consumer Reports or The Balance might not have.
Perhaps they only stuck with me because they seemed accurate and it was only coincidence.
Or if they say they cars under 50000 miles I respond asking them my car has 50001 miles would it still be covered
Jail time. Fines means that the law is simply another part of the business's cost calculations. If the fine is low enough, and it often is, then it can still be "good business" to knowingly break the law, pay the fine, and still pull a profit.
Putting actual law-breaking humans in jail changes the cost-benefit analysis dramatically.
Hotels (when you're booking, are you SURE you're booking with the actual hotel?) They may be collecting money to simply reserve the room under your name, but not pay for it - even if they just charged you the same amount. A $119 charge to call the hotel and put in your name.
Health Insurance (When you enter your phone number/email/name there are companies that simply collect money by re-sending your contact info to about 100 sub-scam companies. You may end up with insurance but through the worst types of people that have resold and resold. Oh and don't forget you'll be on some of the WORST robocalling services.
Pretty much all CC fraud "watch" services - especially if your own credit card company signed you up. Taking out a line of credit, if it was not valid - is already something you are protected against. If you have someone to "watch" that stuff for you, it's not really protecting you further.
In the UK it's free to change your name, you can just write your name change on a peice of paper, get a couple of friends to sign it and you're done. I've done this, but when I tried to explain to someone else the free process they told me I was wrong, citing scam websites with semi-official names that charged for the process.
A few days later, my boss showed up with a thank-you gift.
I've often wondered how many people fall for it (I assume enough they keep doing it), and whether they actually renew them, or just take some money and run.
I've even had firms purchase other extensions for my domain (particularly a .org, .net, or .co), then email me asking to buy it from them. I usually respond and tell them I'm selling the .com domain myself and they can purchase it directly from me for half of the price they're offering to sell me the other extensions.
No one has ever taken me up on my offer.
Offering to sell can be twisted into "extortion" in a UDRP proceeding if you're not careful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Re...
Agree if I want to keep the domain, I'd be careful not to lead anyone on - scammer or otherwise.
Closely related to fake invoicing, which actually is considered criminal.
When you register a business, that is public knowledge and can be acquired by marketers very easily. Then someone calls you up, makes you believe that they are the tax authorities (although very carefully never saying that they are) and get you to pay for a registration, which might make a new entrepreneur confused and think that they need this to be VAT registered.
Those who sign up have actually signed up to be in a shitty business directory made by someone's 14-year-old nephew. They provide nothing of value since no one uses their website and there are free business directories that just add your business as soon as it hits the tax authorities' database. But they will claim that they are providing you with crucial advertising.
If you don't pay up, they will say that you have a valid contract with them and you have to pay, or else. If you wish to hear the contract between you and them, they will say that the recording is purely for judicial action - you're not getting it. So unless you record all of your calls, you have no copy of the contract.
The sums are not massive. Maybe 300 euros. Definitely valuable, but perhaps not so valuable that you want to waste your time fighting it.
Services like this for getting a copy of your birth certificate, too. Basically pay to access the freely available form from state websites.
Pay shame site to "submit" items lost in NYC taxis. I think all it does is post your submission to the site so it is publicly viewable.
How could putting such information in fine-print escape any definition of "deception" when the obscurity of that information is vital to their operation.
On the face of it, it seems more likely they are illegal yet unchallenged. I doubt they would hold up in any reasonable court of law.
I always do my own title search when buying property. You go to the courthouse and you just go back one page at a time. Each deed references the previous ones. You copy each on the photocopier there which if you live in a fair and reasonable county costs 10-25 cents a page. Or you can even bring your own scanner in if you like. Go back 100 years or so. Then at your leisure later review each of these for liens and encumbrances. And also whack problems with the boundary descriptions, or questionable issues with right of way.
Doing this is way more valuable than paying hundreds to somebody to hand you off something they are pretending to be a proper title search.
I probably get at least one of these a month. Everything from trademark renewal to burglar alarm permit renewal.
Sorry in Advance, I'm not familiar with this formal process. If the whole exchange is triggered by completing the property deed, what's the service this company claims to provide for $89?
I understand it's a scam, but what is the "alibi-service" they deliver in return for the payment?
I reported it to my Credit Card company as fraud given the official looking nature of everything, and they promptly refunded the purchase.
Genuinely curious -- what valid non-commercial use case does publicly knowing the names, prices, etc. of everyone who bought/sold a house serve?
You can get an EIN from the IRS online for free in 5 minutes.
The letters can look VERY official; sometimes almost clones of official state mailings.
After you buy a property my local government sends you an mandatory looking survey in an attempt to a) rat on the previous owner for un-permitted improvements b) build a case for valuing your house higher for taxes c) preemptively admit to non-compliance with city specific laws you probably don't know about yet.
I was going to write a letter to the local newspaper but I thought better of drawing attention to myself that way.
Identifying official US government websites is like the easiest thing on the internet -- the US is the only country in the world with their own TLD dedicated to government websites.
I can't think of a more 'legit' look than that, although I guess if you're not from the US you probably haven't visited US government websites very often and might not have much of a reference point.