Yet Another Thing to Worry About (Or is it?)
Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2023 4:46 am
I've been seeing a lot of ads on TV for something called a "title lock service", which supposedly will monitor your home's title to make sure that scammers don't transfer the title of your home to their name, and then try to sell it or borrow against its equity, leaving you holding the bag for the debt... or, in a worst-case scenario, homeless. The question I had was is this really enough of a thing that there would be a need for such a service, or is this a case of where someone created a product and is now creating a 'need' for it by these fear-mongering tactics.
So, I did a Google search... and I found that while this is in fact possible (provided someone has obtained your personal information such as SSN, date of birth, and other sensitive details), it ain't all that common. According to this information from the FBI, there has been a rash of rental and real-estate scams ... but in 2021, there were fewer than 12000 reports of losses reported by victims of real estate/rental scams with a total dollar amount of around $350.3 million reportedly lost. And remember ... that is 1) across the entire nation, and 2) includes losses due to ALL forms of real estate fraud, not just title transfer.
So while it can and undoubtedly does happen under specific circumstances, it seems to me that paying someone else to monitor your title is money that can be put to better use. Just follow good common sense with regard to your personal information, and keep checking your credit records and history for anything that seems out of the ordinary.
-"BB"-
So, I did a Google search... and I found that while this is in fact possible (provided someone has obtained your personal information such as SSN, date of birth, and other sensitive details), it ain't all that common. According to this information from the FBI, there has been a rash of rental and real-estate scams ... but in 2021, there were fewer than 12000 reports of losses reported by victims of real estate/rental scams with a total dollar amount of around $350.3 million reportedly lost. And remember ... that is 1) across the entire nation, and 2) includes losses due to ALL forms of real estate fraud, not just title transfer.
So while it can and undoubtedly does happen under specific circumstances, it seems to me that paying someone else to monitor your title is money that can be put to better use. Just follow good common sense with regard to your personal information, and keep checking your credit records and history for anything that seems out of the ordinary.
-"BB"-