The report warns of several ways in which people have been conned out of their homes. While thieves generally target vacation homes or empty homes, the FBI has investigated sales of occupied houses. By law, as the rightful owner, you won't lose your house as long as you have proof that you are the legitimate owner. But it's likely to cause an enormous expenditure of time and money.
Among the cases being investigated by the FBI:
- Con artists "stole" an occupied house and sold it to someone so enamored of the great price is getting that he's satisfied with online photos.
- Thieves posed as the rightful owner and took out home equity lines of credit against the property, draining it slowly so it wouldn't be detected.
- Thieves deposited proceeds from an illegal loan into a business account to get under the lender's radar.
- Cons changed the title of a house to his name and sold the house.
All of the schemes involved using the owner's personal information to create fake IDs and Social Security cards so that the thief can file the papers to complete and/or transfer the property.
"In one case prosecuted by the feds, the ID thieves used the name-change mechanism offered to people who are getting married or divorced to obtain false driver's licenses, which they used to get Social Security numbers," the Tribune reported. In most cases, though, business records are the main source of private information theft.
A "red flag" rider to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 was recently passed by Congress. This rider, which takes effect Nov. 1, 2008, requires any business that handles personal documents to develop a program to prevent ID theft. That includes financial institutions and creditors.
The guidelines say institutions should be on the lookout for actions such as:
- ID theft alerts from fraud detection services, customers, law enforcement agencies and others
- a credit bureau's notice of credit freeze provided to an institution along with the institution's requested consumer credit report
- an increase in credit report inquiries or other unusual patterns on a credit report
the appearance of doctored or forged documents - inconsistent information
- identifying information associated with known fraudulent activity
- use of a single Social Security Number or other identifying number used to open accounts under different names
- applicants failing to provide all required identifying information
- information supplied that is not consistent with existing information on file
- a new revolving credit account used in a manner commonly associated with fraud patterns
- an account used in a manner not consistent with established patterns of activity on the account
- mail sent to the customer's on file address repeatedly returned as undeliverable.
