More Scams – Watch Out!
By Russell W. Hall, CFP®, CPWA®
As pointed out thousands of years ago, there’s nothing new under the sun. And indeed, the main structure of scams hasn’t changed much. They typically include:
1. Unsolicited contact from a stranger
2. An offering of something valuable or desirable
3. Request for personal and/or financial information
4. Pressure to act quickly
That said, technology seems to be creating more ways for scammers to try and take advantage of us.
QR Codes
QR is short for “Quick Response”. These black and white square codes can be scanned and read by a smartphone camera. They usually link to a website and are everywhere nowadays. Restaurants in particular are heavy users, sometimes replacing their menus entirely with a QR code posted at the tables. But other uses include advertisements (bus stop, mall, in magazines), learning environments (schools, museums), forms and paperwork, and directing payments.
The last two categories have more potential for a possible scam. QR codes can be altered or simply replaced to point to fake and malicious websites that look and feel very similar to their real counterparts. Criminals can steal personal information, redirect payments, and even load malware into our phones. The FBI published an alert on this issue back in early 2022, with some helpful tips on how to protect yourself.
Deed and Title Theft
Although fears of someone stealing your home out from under you are somewhat overblown, there is definitely a scam out there where your house’s title can be changed without your knowledge. In the majority of cases the theft was done by someone close to the victim - think of an adult child taking advantage of their elderly, disabled parent.
There’s no advanced warning for this type of theft, so it doesn’t follow the main structure of scams that we outlined above. For that reason, there’s a lot of fear and misconception around this issue.
Because most counties will send out notices any time there is a change to your title, it’s relatively unlikely that your home would be sold. The bigger risk is that by stealing your identity, the criminals could take out a loan or refinance the house. There’s also more risk with other types of real estate you might own that could be vacant at times, such as a vacation home or a rental property.
Any kind of forged deed is not legally valid, so ultimately the responsibility will fall on the buyer or lender who accepted the document. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a mess and very difficult to clear everything up - and for those victims who aren’t able to defend themselves, it can be devasting.
There’s not a lot you can do to protect yourself from this scam, but one recommendation is to check with the title company annually (in much the same way you check your credit reports each year). And watch out for title theft insurance or title lock companies; they aren’t an actual scam, but they’re not really doing more than you could just do yourself.
If You’re a Victim…
First – you’re not stupid! Anyone can make a mistake, and scammers are getting more sophisticated. We all need to slow down and be more careful.
But if you’ve been scammed, then within 12-72 hours:
1. Freeze your credit reports (more information about that below)
2. Notify your bank and put an alert on your accounts
3. Notify and freeze your credit cards
4. File a police report
For online fraud, you can also file a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov.
There is no longer a cost to freeze your credit reports. However, you’ll need to unfreeze them if you want to apply for credit yourself in the future. To set up the freeze, contact each credit reporting company:
Equifax – 888-298-0045
Experian – 888-397-3742
Transunion – 888-909-8872
Much of this information came from a presentation by Karen Rossi of the Orange County Council on Aging. We greatly appreciate the Council’s work of keeping the public informed about these issues.