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The ultimate identity theft: "house stealing"

networkworld.com — The FBI issued a warning today about "a totally new kind of crime: house stealing." It combines the twin dangers of identity theft and mortgage fraud. Incredibly, some people are being victimized while still occupying their homes.

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  • lucidguru, on 03/26/2008, -4/+9This ups the ante on the possible profits from identity theft... At what point will the risks of prison be outweighed by the ludicrous profits that a single deal would make. This is nutz!
    • nahsrocketeer75, on 03/26/2008, -0/+4Seems that point has already arrived.
    • Elliuotatar, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1Seems to me the risk is way too high. I mean let's say you steal someone's identity and do this. What good does it do you? Sure the documents say the house is theirs. But once people start marching through your house to see if they want to buy it. the jig is going to be up. And once you know what's going on, it seems to me that it won't be terribly hard to prove that no money was ever transferred to you to sell the home to the fraudster.

      And even if they manage to sell the home to someone else without you knowing, how are they going to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars before you figure out what's happened?

      Seems to me that while it might be easy to "steal" the home, actually making money off it and getting away with it is an entirely different matter.
  • Skooma714, on 03/26/2008, -0/+11Well, at you least you can lie in wait for the ***** and tear out their spine.

    Reminds me of one of those lizards that lay eggs in a bird's nest and then the bird takes care of the lizard eggs to end up having the real eggs and maybe the bird itself being eaten.
  • satori3000, on 03/26/2008, -0/+18This has been happening in Canada for a few years now. It's only recently that the government has put any sort of legislation around protecting the home owner. Our governments need to protect the individuals more than they need to protect the banks, but without a strong lobby group I don't see this happening soon.
    • fokov, on 03/26/2008, -1/+6Our representatives should not need to be bought off to protect us! It is the whole point of their job: to represent us and make our lives better off.
      • WoollyMittens, on 03/26/2008, -0/+5The word representative is meaningless. It's the propaganda word for "master".
    • vertinox, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2There are two things you can do.

      1. Call the FTC fraud alert (the number is on equifax's web page under identity theft or fraud section) every 90 days to lock down your credit.
      or
      2. Write Equifax, Transunion, and that other credit one (Esperion?) and get a credit freeze

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_freeze
      • w00tfest99, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1Wow, I didn't know about a credit freeze, thanks.
    • DeFex, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2LOL protect the individual? Well it depends if there is any money in it for lawyers.
  • RenJen42, on 03/26/2008, -3/+3"(No word in the press release about those who might welcome having their houses stolen, given the disparity between what they owe and what the homes are worth. ... Yes, I'm kidding.)"

    I wish someone would steal my condo. I bought it for way too much, and am taking a 30k loss selling it. Take my mortgage payment please!!

  • TehUberGeeK, on 03/26/2008, -0/+22In related news. The Riches has began it's second season.
    • Markpdotcom, on 03/26/2008, -0/+3As much as I love Eddie Izzard's standup, I can't belive that got a second season!
    • codered1322, on 03/26/2008, -0/+5Eddie Izzard is awesome on that show.
  • dbldwn, on 03/26/2008, -2/+12This has been around for awhile. It's called Eminent Domain. ;)
  • WoundedCow, on 03/26/2008, -3/+3I live in a modular and am relatively poor....I'm thinking the thieves would do this to someone a little more upscale than me. It pays to be lower middle class.
  • DoodleMaster, on 03/26/2008, -7/+1Ever see that family guy episode where James woods steals peter identity?

    Episode is called "back to the woods" and is the 9th episode of season 6 i believe.

    http://www.justfamilyguy.com/episodes/episode.php? ...

    Yea I cracked up when I saw this articles title. Family guy predicts the future!!! :O
  • clemtinite, on 03/26/2008, -15/+5dug for americans being fattened up for the kill
  • justjoehere, on 03/26/2008, -2/+9Identity thieves should have their physical identities removed.
  • kylere, on 03/26/2008, -1/+7If someone would take over payments on my house, I would hug them and squeeze them and call them George!
    • fokov, on 03/26/2008, -0/+4It isn't that they overtake your payments. They become you, transfer the house to someone else, you get stuck with a mortgage and no house.
      • CosmicJustice, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1No you don't get stuck. Whoever bought the falsified deed gets stuck and you still own your house.
  • bjs3171, on 03/26/2008, -1/+4The Riches is a hell of a show.
  • cydwatts, on 03/26/2008, -0/+7This is hardly a NEW form of crime. 25 years ago, a house down the street from me was sold three times while the rightful owners were out of town on vacation. By people who had no claim to the house or the mortgage. Those poor people were pretty upset when they got home....
    • liquidpele, on 03/26/2008, -0/+7And the new "owners" didn't think it was strange that the house was full of other people's *****? WTF?
      • jub0r, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1To be fair, almost all houses that you go and look at are full of other people's *****. They don't actually move out until their house is sold. If you put a move-in date far enough down the road, you might be able to sell it three times before someone tries to move in and discovers the house is still full of furniture.
  • WilliamDavis, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2I saw this on the news... and the anchor said everyone is at risk. Sheesh.
    • vertinox, on 03/26/2008, -1/+2Well everyone is at risk of dying a car accident, but as you are aware it doesn't seem to happen to yourself. Unless you are dead, but how are you reading Digg?
    • giid, on 03/26/2008, -0/+3I love how the media loves to frighten us with news stories, but offers no advice on how to protect ourselves.
    • brufleth, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2I'm going to go out on a limb here but wouldn't owning a house be somehow connected to risk of this sort of crime? I rent, probably will for a long time yet. I guess it might suck if it happened to my land lord...
    • Linake, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1Everyone except the homeless. Lucky bastards!
  • jololli, on 03/26/2008, -0/+5So someone commits fraud and transfers your house to themselves, then sells the house. You find out. What then? The latest homebuyer gets screwed because they've got proceeds of crime? Would they be forced to give up the home without compensation unless they sue the con artist?
    • liquidpele, on 03/26/2008, -1/+6There is something called "Title insurance", or something like that. We just bought a house and paid it. It repays you in the situation that the person that sold you the house really didn't own the land due to fraud, poor deed record keeping, etc...
      let me google it..... ah! here:
      http://homebuying.about.com/od/homeshopping/qt/Tit ...
      • brufleth, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1Not sure why you were dug down. Even I've heard of this and I'm going to be renting for years to come. If I remember it isn't all that much money and is generally a good practice to get. It isn't all that far fetched for people to honestly have issues where they don't own all or some of the land they thought they did or records get messed up which can cause big problems. The insurance allows you to more or less just walk away without losing much.
        • liquidpele, on 03/26/2008, -2/+1I always seem get dug down when I post useful information, so I've stopped worrying about it. As I've said before, Digg's moderation system sucks in my opinion.
    • WoollyMittens, on 03/26/2008, -0/+4That's a very good question. If new inhabitants arrived at my home unexpected, they probably would have a hard time removing me. Then again. If they are willing to pay my ridiculous mortgage, I can be packed and shipped out in about 20 minutes.
    • giid, on 03/26/2008, -0/+5If the person who bought your home bought it from someone who didn't really own it, then yes they would be forced to leave and give it back to the rightful owner. It's the same with any other receiving of stolen goods, why would houses be any different? Buyer beware. Or else I will be forced to defend my home--more and more this defense is becoming legal--read up about castle doctrines.
      • ubuwalker31, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2Of course, its the "someone who really didn't own it" part that is going to bite you in the ass. Whether you own property is determined by whether you have title to the property. If there is a break in title - you failed to file your deed or your grandmother inherited the property and didn't file a new deed - all sorts of mischief can occur. In fact, criminals often set out to find properties that have serious title flaws and attempt to work the system. There have been numerous cases over the years of people filing a deed to property that they don't own and then selling it to an innocent buyer who did a title search and bought title insurance. Of course, the legitimate homeowner who failed to file is ***** out of luck, since the innocent party had no way of knowing that the homeowner was outside the chain of title, and he does have a deed to the property, and you don't.
    • jololli, on 03/26/2008, -1/+2I suppose if the new people have been living there for at least thirty days or enough to satisfy squatter's laws things would get particularly messed up.
  • OneZeroZeroOne, on 03/26/2008, -0/+7And how do the crooks get away with this? Who do they transfer your property to without identifying/incriminating themselves? "Yes, your Honor, I transfered my $200,000 home, free of charge, to someone I've never met before, all while I was out of town in the Bahamas...I thought they deserved it."
    • brufleth, on 03/26/2008, -1/+3Have you ever been to court over something seemingly stupid? I've had a judge look me right in the eye and say something to the effect of, "There is no evidence of wrong doing and I do not believe the testimony against you is accurate but I think (based on nothing) you probably still did something wrong."

      The legal process is weird.
    • ubuwalker31, on 03/26/2008, -1/+2They file something called a quitclaim deed. It basically gives all of your property rights to another person. Curiously, a quitclaim deed neither warrants nor professes that the grantor's claim is actually valid. So the con artist assumes someones identity who has defective title, and then quitclaims the property to someone, for cold hard cash. That person files the deed and they own the property. The real owner turns up and says WTF?! The tricked owner says, I filed the deed and your title is faulty, and therefore, I win. Real owner gets screwed and has to hire a lawyer. Crook is found and cash has long since been spent and so he is sent to jail. The End.
  • freshyill, on 03/26/2008, -0/+4Didn't this happen in Beverly Hills Cop 2?
    • robinohio1, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1No...Alex Foley just started living there. He could not pull that hotel scam he did in the first movie.
  • brandonelliott, on 03/26/2008, -1/+3thanks for the step by step instructions...
    • robinohio1, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1Yeah...there are few empty houses on my street....hmmm....
  • liquidjamm, on 03/26/2008, -2/+3What a win for people with crappy mortgages :)
  • mikephimikephi, on 03/26/2008, -0/+3Given the state of the mortgage market, I would think people would be happy for their homes to be stolen.
    Insurance picks up the tab and you're debt free.
    To quote The Fonz...ayyyyyyy
  • DeFex, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2The government on the other hand can do it whenever they feel like it, they probably don't care much which of the little people have the land, its theirs whenever they want it.
  • citizen782, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1This is also a problem with reverse mortgages. Kids are reverse mortgaging their parents houses without their consent or knowledge so they can cash the check and have $25K for a new Altima or some stupid material ***** like that. This is reportedly particularly alluring to Jr.'s who have no problem with ID.
  • morningchai, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2Yep, this recently happened to my parents and the house I grew up in -- the house they are STILL living in. Over 20 yrs since they purchased it, finally making the last mortgage payments, only to get a call from the bank to "confirm" they were selling it. (What!#$&*) They've never expressed any interest in selling, but apparently, a "Remax real estate agent" had faxed the bank with documents, complete with forged signatures. After going to the bank to verify this identity theft, my mom found photos of our house on the agent's website and also in the local newspaper!! Photos taken over a year ago (my mom could tell by gardening and landscaping of the front yard that she herself had done)! They've since taken action, getting a lawyer and police involved. The last I heard, the agent was fired and had his license taken from him, although he denies everything. Apparently, he (and his co-conspirators) have been known to authorities that have been following similar cases.
    I can't tell you how ***** off I was when I first about this from my parents. I was just livid at the nerve of these people to put my parents through months of fear and anguish (my mom cried herself to sleep and wouldn't leave the house for weeks, fearing someone would break in and stake their claim on the house). I'm so thankful the ordeal is over and that crimes like this are getting more attention in the press, wherever it may be happening.
  • LCRev, on 03/26/2008, -0/+0They should really have stricter identity security procedures for large payments like houses. A driver's license is too easily faked, and not enough. They should require like, 2-3 types of identification, such as a passport.
    Not to mention if someone's "selling" the house, the bank should at least go to the house and look at it, and verify the "seller" as the person who actually lives there.
    These are hundreds of thousands of dollar exchanges, it's no joke.
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