221 Cannon is Not For Sale
fredbenenson.com
fredbenenson.com
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
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.
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.
And we're not talking inches.
But, yeah, even inches (or any liens) can be an issue when it comes time to sell.
A number of US states historically had Torrens title, but most have repealed it, effectively converting Torrens titles to non-Torrens. Illinois had it – only in Cook County – until it was repealed in 1992. California abolished it in 1955. Virginia abolished it in 2019. Washington state abolished it in 2022-2023.
The big advantage of Torrens title is that it eliminates the need for title insurance, or at least makes it much cheaper. (You can still buy title insurance in Australia, but the Torrens title system significantly reduces the risk to the insurer, resulting in lower premiums–the risk it is covering is not that you don't have title to the property at all, rather risks such as the boundary fences being in the wrong places.) But in those US states which had it, title insurers wouldn't give you any discount for having it, and banks would still insist on title insurance to lend, nullifying the primary practical advantage of the Torrens system–the end result was your property was under a different title system which many didn't understand, which could make real estate transactions appear more complex, discourage buyers and lenders, etc. This resulted in political pressure from landowners on the system to be allowed to move off it, which is what resulted in it being repealed.
I think the US state in which Torrens would be most likely to be successful would be Iowa, since private title insurance is banned there. However, repeated attempts to introduce Torrens in Iowa failed, because the attorneys who investigate the validity of titles saw it as a threat to their livelihoods, and they successfully lobbied the state legislature against the idea.
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
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.
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.
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.
There is: the county clerk in the county where the land is located.
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.
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.
(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)
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).
As I pointed out in a reply to that comment, that's a popular misconception – legally, Iowa uses essentially the same land title system as every other US state; the main difference is instead of private title insurance, there is a state government monopoly on title insurance. But Iowans use the phrase "title insurance" to mean "private title insurance", making many of them wrongly think their state doesn't have title insurance at all.
Several US states previously enacted Torrens title, but largely unsuccessfully – few titles were ever converted to Torrens, and in almost all of them Torrens title is either repealed or effectively moribund.
The only place under US jurisdiction where Torrens title is fully mainstream, is Guam. Guam adopted it in the early 20th century, around the same time as the US territories of Hawaii and the Philippines did. It survived in the Philippines, but the Philippines became an independent country. In Hawaii, it was successful in a few parts of the state (in particular Lānaʻi), but otherwise largely not.
No, the point is that this is actually not true. The transfer has happened as soon as the deed has been executed. There are many reasons you generally want to record the deed in a timely fashion, but doing so is not strictly necessary.
It is in Florida, which is where I live. Florida Statutes section 695.01:
"No conveyance, transfer, or mortgage of real property, or of any interest therein, nor any lease for a term of 1 year or longer, shall be good and effectual in law or equity against creditors or subsequent purchasers for a valuable consideration and without notice, unless the same be recorded according to law"
I can't say whether every US state has similar law in place, but I suspect most of them do, since both the State and the county clerks get revenue from the recording fees.
By my lay reading of that, it doesn't even actually necessitate recording the deed sooner for it to have those effects - rather it just means that the deed needs to have been recorded some time before you get to court.
> it just means that the deed needs to have been recorded some time before you get to court.
No, before whatever event happens that might trigger a lawsuit.
For example (hypothetical as far as I know): say I purchase a property from a fraudulent seller. They promise me they'll record the deed after it's signed and notarized by both of us, but they never do so. (Of course I'd be stupid to do things this way, but maybe I'm a real cheapskate and want to save on title company fees.) Then they sell it to someone else. In order for my ownership rights to be protected by Florida law, I would have had to see that the deed was not recorded, and do it myself (and pay the recording fee), before the date of the second sale. Before the date of the court hearing to challenge the second sale would not be sufficient.
It's true that, in a typical closing in Florida (and in every other state where I've bought real property), the closing takes place at the title company's office, their notary notarizes all the documents and gives me copies before I leave, and I get the key to the house at the end of that. I don't have to wait until the deed is recorded with the county to take possession.
My question would be, how does a closing work in jurisdictions that have Torrens title? Does the closing have to take place at the land registry, so they can confirm that everything is checked and valid and recorded before I get the key to the house?
I'll accept that interpretation. But that's still just a patch over the underlying semantics trying to eliminate a lot of thorny cases, not a full change in semantics.
For example, let's say 12/31 is a Sunday. The seller wishes to sell the property this year for tax purposes. The seller executes the purchase agreement and the deed on 12/31, and then only records the deed on 1/2 (when the registry reopens). For purpose of taxes, that is still treated as a sale in the earlier year, right?
> My question would be, how does a closing work in jurisdictions that have Torrens title? Does the closing have to take place at the land registry, so they can confirm that everything is checked and valid and recorded before I get the key to the house?
I have no idea. It seems like the main difference with Torrens title is that when the deed is accepted by the registry then you know it is authoritative. So a closing at an attorney's office with delayed recording has the same ambiguity under both systems. The difference would be that when the deed is confirmed recorded under Torrens, that ambiguity has been fully resolved. Whereas under non-Torrens that ambiguity hangs around indefinitely, insured against by title insurance, and eventually [mostly] extinguished by adverse possession.
To the best of my knowledge, yes, the date of closing, which is the date on which the deed is executed, is the date of sale for tax purposes. Note, however, that at least in the US, the IRS doesn't check what you claim the date of sale is unless you are audited, and I never have been. What would happen in an audit under your hypothetical, I can't say.
> a closing at an attorney's office with delayed recording has the same ambiguity under both systems.
Yes, that's why I asked if such a closing is even allowed under a Torrens system--it seems like it would defeat a key purpose of the system, which is to make sure that the land registry's records always are the "single source of truth" for who owns what.
> which is to make sure that the land registry's records always are the "single source of truth" for who owns what.
I think you're coming at this from a tech perspective of fully authoritative digital databases a little too much. Look at the ambiguity that remains after a non-Torrens transfer, and after a Torrens transfer. Eliminating that is the main point of Torrens title. It still can't solve the entire problem and be a "single source of truth" the way we see things in the tech world.
That Florida statute would seem to eliminate a good chunk of that ambiguity as well, but not all.
Also no, state tax codes can be pretty complex as well. On this particular issue, I had trouble finding an attorney who would represent me for less than $10k (while still equivocating about the merits of my position!), so I represented myself. It took a twenty minute phone call with two state tax agents to come to an amicable agreement. A++ would get taxed again.
I've previously been one to echo negative sentiment about government bureaucracy, but the times I've had to deal with it (not the IRS thankfully but rather a few other federal agencies) the agents have been generally helpful and empowered to act authoritatively. They're still part of a bureaucracy of course, with some of the laughable things that entails, but ultimately still human beings with some leeway to act.
For the most part I think the negative narrative has been informed by corporate bureaucracies getting really bad (IVRs, offshoring, bottomless ticket systems, now LLMs, etc) and so we're all assuming that the government simply must be worse. But it's not. (well maybe it is now after the DOGE arsonists brought so-called "corporate efficiency", I don't actually know)
I'm not sure what those have to do with this question, since it's a legal question, not an accounting question.
> I feel pretty confident that if a state tax authority agrees with the deed date being the transfer date, then the IRS would as well.
In many cases a state tax authority wouldn't even be involved, since many states don't tax capital gains (which is what would be involved with a home sale) while the US Federal government does.
> negative sentiment about government bureaucracy
Evidently your experiences with government bureaucracies have been very, very different from mine.
I mentioned my experience with a state tax authority because it is direct personal experience about this very topic. I don't know why you turned that into being about the IRS, and are now even seemingly rejecting the state tax authority "being involved". The date of the transfer was directly relevant to my disagreement with the state tax authority, and they didn't question that date being the deed date even though the recording happened some time later. Either believe me or not, I don't care.
> Evidently your experiences with government bureaucracies have been very, very different from mine.
Sure? I'm not saying they were a some pleasant, responsive, quick, and casual experience - rather much less bad than I was expecting. And dealing with some corporate bureaucracies has been much worse, with constant transferring and calling back every week to check on status and make sure a ticket didn't get stuck and timeout, etc.
Um, because that's what I orginally began talking about when the topic of taxes came up? Go back and look at the first post of mine in this subthread where I explicitly mentioned the IRS. You brought up state tax authorities after that, not before.
> and are now even seemingly rejecting the state tax authority "being involved".
If you sell a home in a state that doesn't tax capital gains--such as the state I live in, and indeed every state in which i have sold a home--then the state tax authority is not involved. Which is what I already explicitly said.
> Sure?
Quite sure. I never assumed your experience was "pleasant, responsive, quick and casual"--indeed, your "much less bad than I was expecting" was how I already had read your previous post. And that experience is, as I said, very, very different from experiences I have had with government bureaucracies (not all such experiences, but enough of them that they are not outliers), for which the most charitable description I could give would be "much, much worse than I was expecting".
> dealing with some corporate bureaucracies has been much worse
I certainly have had bad experiences with corporate bureaucracies as well, and I was in no way implying that they are any better than government bureaucracies. My average experience with both is probably about the same.
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.
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.
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"?
I don’t know what High Court case they are talking about-they didn’t give a citation just a vague recollection-they might be remembering wrong.
But the assumption in the Torrens system is the government database is correct. There are rare exceptions-e.g. the so-called “paramount interests”-but they are narrow and very much exceptional. By contrast, in the US system, a court is totally open to entertaining the argument the county title records are incorrect, in many states there is no presumption against such an argument, and you aren’t required to convince the court some narrowly drawn exception applies before it will consider the argument. (Actually Australia still has something like the “US system” too-we call it “old title”-but old title is extremely rare. Anyone trying to sell an old title lot is going to convert it to Torrens before selling it. I don’t think you can legally sell it until you do so. So in practice the only old title lots left are those which haven’t changed ownership-other than by inheritance-in many decades.)
> 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.
That’s not how it works. Overseas contracts, court judgements, etc - if you don’t lodge them with the land title registry, they don’t legally exist as far as land titles go.
As I pointed out in another post downthread, that is also the case in US jurisdictions that record deeds: if the deed transferring ownership isn't recorded with the county clerk, the transfer doesn't legally exist.
The difference, at least in many US jurisdictions, as I pointed out in that other post, is that in those US jurisdictions the county clerk does not guarantee that the deed is final, any other legal challenges notwithstanding. For example, I think someone else upthread gave the example of someone making a will in a different state that left property to their children instead of their spouse. When that person dies, yes, whoever is supposed to inherit the property would need to record a transfer deed in the county where the property is located to effect the transfer. But their legal right to do so depends on a will executed in a different state.
In many US jurisdictions, the county clerk is not responsible for checking to see if the person recording the transfer deed has the legal right to do so; that's up to other parties involved. But under the Torrens system you describe, it seems like the government land registry would have to do such a check in order to make the guarantee it makes. But how can it? It doesn't control or have access to things like wills in other jurisdictions that determine who has the legal right to take title to a property.
Commonly what happens-in legally complex situations, they’ll refuse to register the change in ownership; and then you have to challenge their refusal in the local jurisdiction’s courts-which are much better equipped to deal with complex legal issues, especially those involving interactions with foreign jurisdictions than the lands title registry is-and if you convince the court, they’ll order the registry to register the title change.
For deceased estates, they want to see an order from probate court telling them what to do before they do anything (if there is a will which nobody disputes, such an order is basically a formality). They don’t accept overseas court decisions; you need to apply to a local court asking for an order for the execution of the foreign judgement, and if the local court grants it, then the land registry will action it.
In your scenario where someone dies in another state, the legal process in Australia is-you apply to the probate division of the Supreme Court of their state of residence for an order of probate. Then you apply to the probate division of the Supreme Court of the state in which the property is located to get an in-state court order endorsing the out-of-state court order as valid. Then you send both court orders to the land title registry, and it will register the change of title in accordance with them. All the land title registry has to do is (a) validate the court order is real (I think they have access to court computer systems to double-check this); (b) in the (very rare) case there is any vagueness or ambiguity in what the court order tells them to do, they’ll reject it and tell you to get another court order with more precise instructions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> You can't hold it against us if that happens
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...
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.
Torrens is great but CAP theory still applies.
Property tax is also the other 9/10ths - if someone is paying the property tax they're presumed to be the owner unless there's a court fight; and in fact, if you want, in many places in the USA you can get adverse possession by paying property tax on unknown or unwanted property - or buy them at auction by paying the back property tax.
The ones you can easily do this on are all various kinds and forms of worthless land, but hey, it's out there!
We cannot have such a national registry in the United States. We could have 50 independent ones, but the few states that tried it have given up and reverted.
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.
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-...
As for the nature of the scam, there are different levels of this. Most likely, the mark is the buyer / the escrow agency.
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.
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.
she said the next few years he got many tax returns, apparently several people using his legitimate ssn.
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.
Every single $&@ doctor's intake form: "We'd like to have you SSN".
I don't think that they actually do in practice. Last time I opened an account with Comcast they required your social security number. Same with an AT&T cell plan.
Strictly speaking they require /a/ Social Security Number, not necessarily /your/ SSN.
When I signed up for my most recent cellular service, I hesitated at giving my information to the guy in the store. I told him that since it was a pre-paid account I wasn't asking for credit, so there's no need for him to have my information.
He was OK with that, and pulled out an ID card the store keeps in a drawer for just such occasions.
Salespeople have a sales quota, not an enforce-the-rules quota.
As many as 1 in 7 SSNs may have been accidentally used by more than one person. [1]
Unlike Australia's TFN or the UK's VAT, SSN has no self-check, making it rather easy to just... Generate one that works.
And all an API check of the number will tell you, is what an attacker would already have: DOB and Place of Birth.
[0] https://pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0904891106
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/odds-someone-else-has-your...
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.
Sidenote: I don't bear any ill will towards whoever used my SSN. It's not like I was targeted, or even that any harm to me was intended. This was a "hack" of a dysfunctional immigration and employment system, in a way that's totally obvious and easy to anticipate. My ire is reserved for those in positions of responsibility who maintain a regime that is manifestly not fit for purpose.
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.
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.
"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.
> 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...
I’ve had one fraudulent charge in my entire lifetime. Once a quarter seems insane. Are you putting your card info into random websites or something?
It was basically “we caught some shady shit, here is your new card number, which will be delivered today”. It is one of the reasons I like Amex. They are johnny-on-the-spot when they get a sniff of fraud.
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.
> 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
I don't think I've ever seen anyone use a phone to pay at a restaurant. I think I generally see 95%+ pay with cards, the same way that "was" common. The rest is cash. Maybe I'm just not paying attention? I don't know.
Where are these low-trust areas of the US? I want to visit and check it out.
In any case, it hasn't happened again since I started using tap to pay whenever possible.
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.
Becoming marginally more popular in the US but still the exception.
Nowadays it’s less of an issue as those terminals cost peanuts and WiFi is ubiquitous so they have many of them and can just bring one to your table.
(my "signature" is just a squiggle based on my initials and I can't reproduce it consistently)
* 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 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.
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.
Again - it varies state to state, as the constitution dictates.
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.
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/...
Furthermore, at least in Massachusetts, when you purchase property you also purchase title insurance that protects you against this. I remember very specifically, at closing, that my attorney explained that the insurance was in case someone came around with an old claim to the land.
It would be interesting to find out who and what paid out, because these scams have been going on for a bit. (There was one linked to where a property owner drove by and found a house being built on their land.)
Regarding the victim, Kenigsberg:
> Kenigsberg received an undisclosed sum. Sky Top Partners gained a clean title to the land, finished the house and made the sale.
> Kenigsberg remains critical of the system that failed to stop the fraud and of public safety agencies that have not found the perpetrators. Under the law it's possible he could have seen the house destroyed and himself enriched more than he was. He prefers to see the case almost as an outside observer, above the fray.
https://massrealestatelawblog.com/tag/title-theft-concord-ma...
TLDR: The real property owner contacted the town to block the building permit, and then contacted the other people involved in the sale, the documents provided by the scam artist were obviously foraged, but the sale still went through and construction started.
The other major difference between this one and the other link I posted is that the owner was very likely going to build a home on the property when they retired; unlike the other link that I posted where the property was most likely an investment and going to be sold.
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?
It seems like in most cases the scammer pockets the earnest money deposit and that's it, in some cases, the buyer thinks they actually bought the property but they haven't actually (how does that work in terms of the deed?)
Seems like the worst case outcome for vacant land is "free house"?
Edit: based on the comments, the problem for the property owner is the headache and cost associated with cleaning the mess up. You don't lose the property but a fraudulent title change (?) can actually end up in the registry, which can be cleaned up but is a major PITA.
If you've held onto vacant property for years or decades, you may have a specific plan in mind for it (like retirement).
Surely you meant "'Benenson' without the “b” in the email, and the hyphenated 'out-look.com' domain"?
(No I'm not looking at that em-dash)
(ETA: Another one: referring to "hi good morning" in the images of texts when it's actually "hi <name> good evening").
I suspect that the speculators are scammers anyway: they never respond to my questions.
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.
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.
“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”
It suggests that a claim is true simply because many people believe it to be true
My identity was stolen to take out large student loans when I was 3 years old. I learned of it when I was graduated and was trying to take out loans of my own - it was a mess.
I certainly didn't do anything risky as a baby to result in my identity being stolen but it happened anyway.
Put up a big "This property is not for sale" sign on the land.
The first realtor to walk the land would have noticed that sign in a hurry, I figure.
For registry titles you can also add caveats, that require sign-off from another party before transactions can occur. Unfortunately the contact address is still purely snail mail, no email or phone numbers. If you title has a bank mortgage that will appear as a caveat, requiring the debt to be discharged before it can be removed, and that also involves more ID verification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title
https://www.firstlinks.com.au/why-our-torrens-title-property...
None of this scam requires the scammer to be in the U.S.
Even the New York driver's license, even if it is real, could be muled. More likely it is just a photoshop.
And even if they do show up to the meet, what are you going to do? Call the police? Will they even show up quickly? When they do, whose photo ID will the believe? Seems like a good way to spend a night at the station while the police sort some things out.
Your vacant land could have signs which state that it is not for sale; any online listing is a scam.
It could be something small but easily spotted by a real estate agent or other interested party actually visiting the site, but not so obvious or legible in pictures.
Also I'm sure glad that scammer didn't manage to buy that cannon!
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...
That's a dead giveaway that you're talking to an ESOL European, "hello good morning" or "hello good evening".
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
Seems like this isn't really a problem? Who sells land without questions?
They didn't do anything with their land and doesn't have any plans for it for the foreseeable future. It's not like a snowblower that sits in your garage unused. It's land, a piece of planet. If you own it, you should use it for something. If you don't, return it back to people.
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.
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.
>"7. If they get farther they’ll pocket the earnest money deposit which would have been significant in my case."
Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life.
Much less on a property deal where identity and ownership are heavily scrutinized.