The Scam

 I have just been educated on how an identity can be stolen and how criminals steal from unsuspecting individuals from overseas.

  Just like every Realtor who works hard, marketing their listings, I received an email from an individual who wanted to make an offer on one of my listings.  They made their decisions from the photographs and my description and advised me; this was the house of their dreams.  They wanted the contact information for our closing attorney and wanted to direct me on how the transaction should go; I returned an email and advised the individual how we handle business in our office.  I received a phone call a couple days later from the individual and we discussed what names they wanted on the contract and closing documents, so I wrote up the contract, emailed a copy to the potential buyer, to our closing attorney and I contacted the FBI. 

My military intuition took over and I did my background checks from the area where the individual stated they were to be coming from.  The faces of the people did not match the voice from over the SKYPE phone connection I had had.  This is how the scam works;

The criminal finds a “well to do” target, finds banking information on the target and establishes codes in order to withdraw funds.  They find an attorney or title company here in the US to wire funds into to secure and purchase a home.  Prior to the inspection period closing, or after an inspection has been made, they decide the home is not what they anticipated and want their money returned.  The attorney or title company wires the money back to an account, (not the one that it was withdrawn from).  For a few weeks work, the criminals net a quarter million dollars.

Watch your bank accounts folks, our Government doesn't care and the following is what happened after our attorney and myself figured iut the deal was a scam.

In my never ending surprise of how ineffective our government is, after leaving a message with our local FBI office, (they never returned a call), I contacted the district office again and got a different agent who answered the phone.  I explained to the agent about what was about to transpire, how there needed to be some agency exchange to assist the person whose identity had been compromised.  Their answer was; just don’t do the deal. Really; that is the best answer you can come up with?  Of course we’re not going to do the deal but I have information with the SKYPE phone number and an email address of the person who is trying to scam someone out of a quarter million dollars and, the best you can come up with is; don’t do the deal? As per the agent; a crime had not been committed here in the states and they had no jurisdiction over anyone in the UK.  What I could do is report the scam to their web site for statistical information. So I did and that was several days ago and still nothing. So I contacted London Metro, (Scotland Yard), via web site and filed a report with them and also did a crime stoppers report to the local police department where the victim lives, sent a direct email to the victim, and have yet to receive a response from anyone.  I do understood the Olympics was going on at that time but someone was about to be scammed out of a quarter million dollars and there is not one authority willing to do anything to stop it.  Still wanting someone to take notice of a crime that is about to happen; I attempted to contact Homeland Security to report the issue of internet fraud. I called the number listed on their web site and got a recording for immigration service.  I guess crimes only happen Monday through Friday, 9-5 for our Federal Government.  I have contacted several media outlets to possibly air a report to the public about how these scams work, but the Olympics took precedence over the story and, it’s only a quarter million dollars of somebody else’s money, so why should they be concerned? The Bass player in our jamming group is an attorney who explained to me, the Florida Bar has been notifying attorneys of these scams and all fault is on the attorney if a scam like this takes place and many attorney’s are not aware or haven’t been to that briefing.  The majority of Realtors have no clue, this kind of scam is going on and believe it would never effect them, but it can for the hungry Realtor who doesn't do their homework.  My only hope right  then was a media group would pick the story up and let the public know what’s going on and how these scams work, but in the mean time, please pass the word on to other Realtors, FSBO’s, title companies and attorney’s.  Keep this in mind, our government is doing nothing to protect the innocent or ignorant from criminals taking another’s ID and are only reactive instead of pro-active in financial scams.  If you are scammed, you can always fill out the FBI report for their statistics.