I still receive occasional postcards from real estate mogul wannabes for a property out in Colorado (I'm in PA). The previous owners of our house moved to Colorado after they sold us their house, and I assume their name is linked to our address in some gray-market/online DB. Why they wouldn't just send purchase offers direct to the house in CO instead of what they think is the owner's primary address (ours) I don't know, but I'm sure they fire off thousands of these things and don't really care how many are accurate.

I have also never been the victim of identity theft but if you live here you would know luck plays a major role, always.

If you want to marinate in the superiority of you home country you are welcome to. Maybe don’t post on foreign message boards then.

Also, as mentioned in another post, lobbying from title insurance companies is the reason the US doesn't have a central registry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#United_States

As for the nature of the scam, there are different levels of this. Most likely, the mark is the buyer / the escrow agency.

I'm not well versed, just passing along what I've heard from people over the years.

I have always heard the best way to make sure your title can't be stolen is to have a loan against the house so that a bank is involved. As long as a bank is involved, there are numerous additional hoops for something like that.

* OPM Hack

* Target Hack

* Equifax Hack

I say "at least" because there have been more, but I just started ignoring them after a while. I also had it stolen back in the late 1990s; and, thinking back, that was crazy for that time period.

The last time I wrote a cheque I had to cross out the 19 to write in the year. I think they only gave up on that line of questioning when I provided enough evidence to say that the bank had not given me any chequebooks to lose.

I still don't really know what happened there, the best that I can think of is someone with access to the mechanism to print chequebooks was running off 'replacements' for random accounts and then passing them on to people. I'm guessing it counts as identity theft.

Identity theft is not helped by processes that demand certainty and expediency causing pressure on employees to provide both even when they are not available. In a similar credit card issue with my partner, after all of the mess of departments trying to make it other departments' problems, my partner received an email saying that; in accordance with the phone conversation, the issue had been resolved. Having had no such phone conversation this caused a bit of panic, but upon contacting the bank they said that they had tried calling but there was no answer, but they were not allowed to resolve the issue unless they had directly spoken to the customer, so she just wrote that in, otherwise it would keep on causing problems down the line.

On the other hand I have leveraged such processes to my advantage to essentially steal my own identity. For a long time I possessed no photo-id, It was actually buying a house that proved to be the intractable problem that forced me to get a passport (I also wanted to travel) . There were numerous things that required photo ID to exist even if they had not laid eyes on it themselves. It seems rather odd to me, but somehow just the idea that I have it seems enough. Luckily I was once in a situation where I needed photo ID at a time when there was sufficient context to prove my identity by other means. A staff member fudged the system to make it work. That resulted in me acquiring a form of non-photo ID that had been recorded as being verified by photo ID. I leveraged that as a form of pseudo proof-of-photo-id for a number of years.

It wasn't easy to clear up, either. I'm fortunate that a close friend worked (at the time) for the SS administration, and was able to do basically all of the leg-work for me: I just had to sign a few forms he sent me. Someone not equally connected would have had a much harder time.

I'm also painfully aware that effectively every scrap of everyone's personal data has been repeatedly leaked online. I doubt that any amount of care has much to do with whether or not I'll be targeted at some point in the future.

You could walk into a court house and submit paperwork for filing, that transfers the title - all without any kind of sale or verification. It happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#United_States

"Hi! Are you in Tijuana?"

"Not since 1993. Why? What's up?"

"So you didn't just try to buy gasoline at a PEMEX there?"

"Nope, I'm in San Francisco as speak."

"OK, thanks! We'll get a new card out in the mail to you."

That's a pretty low bar for identity theft, but I think it's defensible.

The scam is even larger than you see and exploits missing children reports. There are huge automated scam networks that post missing children reports then get people to share them. Then once the post/ad gets traction they change it to a listing of a house that is auto pulled from public information. They then use that to scam people.

PleasantGreen has a series on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uud0wTAOxSc

Bonus points for figuring out the correct language to use to imply repercussions for failure to act without any actual threats. Patio11 has written about similarly worded letters with regards to debt collections and banking, and I know that there are all kinds of magic incantations in law for all kinds of transgretions.

she said the next few years he got many tax returns, apparently several people using his legitimate ssn.

I used to work a job years ago with lots of people who snuck in here. In order to get the job they needed to provide a social. Not having any idea wtf a social security number was, just that they needed one, it was a relief when someone they lived with or met on the street informed them that xyz at location abc will sell you one for $100.

That's one spot where the identity theft rubber meets the road. And practically everyone's social has been leaked by now.

But still the scammer would never see the earnest money, unless the buyer backed out outside of an option period for whatever reason. Presumably they wouldn't if the land is cheap, and they've agreed to pay cash and put earnest money down.

The claim that the title insurance industry is the reason for lack of adoption of Torrens title schemes is uncited, and immediately followed by descriptions of several cases where Torrens title was adopted (often poorly) and later abandoned.

In all seriousness, this is probably an international crime and they just do not have the resources to chase them all down.

Most mass shootings don't have a lot of the FBI to investigate. The perpetrator often dies on site, so they can't be charged with anything. FBI will likely investigate if there were any co-conspirators, and may work with ATF to determine how the perpetrator obtained the firearm(s). Many times we hear that the perpetrator was "on the FBI's radar", but most of the time, there was no unlawful conduct before the shooting, so what are they supposed to do?

(The house was ordered to be demolished, but the owner and the builder reached a confidential settlement and the house is still standing to this day)

In 1800 land was sold in person only by people who knew each other, in front of other witnesses who knew everybody in town. It worked great, which is why some states (I assume like CT) never bothered with a registry. In the mid 1800s as land out west started opening up for settlement (skip the whole bad treatment of the natives) investors "out east" wanted to invest in land and ran into a problem: they didn't want to go out to the land, but they knew scams existed so they started hiring trusted people to travel instead and verify they property owner was really the person they were buying from. Some states have a registry and so you don't need that, the state tracks owners and verifies the people buying/selling really are who they say they are.

I think you misunderstood the post you were replying to. Torrens title was invented in Australia. Just like in the US, land titles are a state responsibility in Australia not a federal one. But each state has a central statewide land registry which is the authoritative source of truth for land ownership. By contrast, US states hold land title records in a decentralised way (at the local government level not the state level), and those records aren’t legally decisive.

Most common law jurisdictions have centralised land titles, but often centralised at one level below the national government.

In any case, it hasn't happened again since I started using tap to pay whenever possible.

In any case, the US system is already that the government records ownership (not for free, but for a small recording fee) and the title company charges for checking, and for insurance in case they get it wrong.

As just one example of how it can go wrong, here in Seattle it’s common to find out your lot is nine inches smaller than you thought because surveying technology is a lot better now than it was when your deed was written in 1908.

Fascinating, how is ownership established if there is no single source of truth?

I feel the answer to this is also crucial to understanding OP. It could be a minor annoyance or the real possibility to lose your land.

>"7. If they get farther they’ll pocket the earnest money deposit which would have been significant in my case."

And we're not talking inches.

But, yeah, even inches (or any liens) can be an issue when it comes time to sell.

Prison is crime university and ID theft and related crimes are high yield low risk crimes.

The system doesn't care and such title thefts have been increasing for 15-20 years already

There is: the county clerk in the county where the land is located.

Oh, boy, let me tell you it is very disconcerting to pay a title company to do a search of legal records on a property, and the only guarantee they offer in some states is that "we didn't find anything suspicious but there is no guarantee that someone from the past won't pop up with a better claim to ownership. You can't hold it against us if that happens." How is it that most people making the biggest purchase of their lives are going along with that? I'm definitely not okay with it, but sometimes you can't buy property without accepting it- no title company will offer a stronger guarantee.

For details, I'm talking about how in some states the Special Warranty Deed is the standard for real estate purchases: https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-is-a-special-warrant.... A title company will guarantee that the current seller hasn't entered any agreements that might legally obligate you (such as offering the property as collateral for an outstanding loan), but they are very clear that actions of previous owners are not included in this guarantee. So there is no single source of truth- we just hope that we're not part of the tiny percentage where the special deed is insufficient.

Edit: for context, there is a distinction between title insurance and the deed itself, but the title company is only offering insurance on the deed, so if the deed only covers the previous owner then the insurance only covers that too.

Torrens is great but CAP theory still applies.

> 62 million Americans had fraudulent charges on their credit or debit cards last year alone, with unauthorized purchases exceeding $6.2 billion annually.

However, that jibes with other numbers I've seen.

https://www.security.org/digital-safety/credit-card-fraud-re...

Every single $&@ doctor's intake form: "We'd like to have you SSN".

e.g. a married couple buys a house, then one of them dies, and the will is recorded in a different state and leaves their property to their kids rather than the spouse, that sort of update would not be recorded in the county clerk's office in my state.

By contrast, in the Torrens system, whatever the government records say are final. If you are the innocent victim of a mistake by the government (or a fraud against it), the government has to compensate you; but you don’t actually get the land back if it has since been sold to an innocent purchaser.

  > You can't hold it against us if that happens

Many states have a statute of limitations anyway. If you live on the land and pay the property taxes for N years everything else becomes irrelevant. Either the title was transferred to you or you squatted on abandoned land for N years: in both cases it becomes yours.

That's true--but as I pointed out just now in response to another post, since there is no single government having jurisdiction over the entire world, there is always the possibility of events happening outside a given jurisdiction that affect the ownership of property in that jurisdiction. No system of records in a jurisdiction can completely prevent that.

First, it doesn't seem like that's always the case, based on another post upthread talking about a land ownership case that went to the high court because of an error in the government's records.

Second, since there is no single government for the entire world, any government trying to implement a Torrens system is still going to face the problem of events happening outside its jurisdiction that its records do not and cannot contain, which affect ownership of property in its jurisdiction. So there cannot be a "single source of truth" in the sense you appear to be using the term, even in the Torrens system.

Special warranty deeds only cover the current seller, but title insurance can defend against prior ownership claims. I will note that just because title insurance guarantees they will defend against ownership claims, they don't guarantee it will be settled in a particular way. There's a theoretical possibility that an agreement can't be reached that keeps you in the house you thought you bought legally- like in this story the buyers got their money back but didn't keep the house that wasn't theirs https://www.thetitlereport.com/Articles/Title-Insurance-at-W...

Of course, insurance doesn't guarantee you won't have a covered loss. Insurance compensates you if you have a covered loss.

When I've purchased real estate with title insurance, the offer from the title company has been pretty specific about what risks are covered, what risks are specifically not covered, and what the dollar limits are for covered losses. There's a lot of paperwork involved in purchasing real estate, but the title report and the title insurance offer are worth taking the time to read.

Excuse my German ignorance, but my understanding of how it works here is that unless the transfer is notarized, logged and recorded with the local authority, there has not been a legal transfer. So, by that definition of land ownership, no "events outside of its jurisdiction" can take place. Any such agreements become binding only upon their verified registration. A notary is responsible not only for confirming the transfer but also as independent consultant so neither party gets seriously ripped off. (And if they didn't, they would be in serious liability trouble.)

The "share of the database" is managed and owned by the local government, but its records are available all across Germany for authorities to look up. The vector database of lots is public, and there are procedures to request access to ownership documents for various purposes. The procedure is that when you want to buy a certain property, the owner confirms that you have permission to get the official record directly from the land registry, which then become the basis for any serious negotiations as what is recorded there is in fact the single source of truth.

(And, from similar cases in the UK which has this system, if the land registry fucks up the transfer is still final and this has been upheld by the court, the government may just be liable for damages)

However, afaik, county clerks do not validate deeds; they will dutifully record any submitted deed if it follows the proper forms. If there is doubt about the validity of a conveyance, the whole history of recorded deeds for a property can be examined and potentially set aside if found to be fraudulent. Adverse possession laws can moot disputes about old conveyances though: after some time, someone who has "color of title", actual possession, and pays property taxes will gain actual title to the property, even if their original deed was deficient.

In a land registry system, the keeper of the registry generally validates that conveyances are approved by the current owner; this doesn't happen in a system of registered deeds. Deeds I've seen don't truly identify the grantors or grantees either. Typically just the first and last names. There are many people with my name, but if you have a deed for my house signed by the Pulitzer Prize winning author who shares my name, you can record it even though it's not actually valid.

This is also true of county clerks in the US: any transfer of property in the county has to be recorded on a deed that is submitted to the county clerk and kept on file by them. Otherwise it hasn't happened.

> if the land registry fucks up the transfer is still final

This is the part that might not be the same in all US jurisdictions (though it appears it is the same in some, someone posted upthread about Iowa having a system like this).

The record from the land registry includes things like wayrights for third parties, known ground contaminations, utilities/water/power lines etc. -- all very relevant to me as a potential buyer. I did enjoy the notaries explanations of various aspects, which went beyond reading the contract out loud and making sure we verbally understood what we were going to sign. The process also forces both parties to have written copies of everything prior to the final meeting, which provides another chance to let it sink in and potentially reconsider -- which in our case, we did.

I understand one can experience it as "bureaucracy" and "annoyance" in their individual case, but then I wonder how much such people consider the bigger picture and what the benefit of all of it really is, for their own and for societies sake, and what kind of shitshow it would turn into if we got rid of all the "bureaucracy". Even if I (wrongly?) assume I am always on top of things and I will not get ripped off ever, only stupid people will, I really don't need more angry people who fell for scams or made quick decisions around me/on public streets/in bars. If it was for me, we could add a lot more such layers of protection which you seem to see only as "(unnecessary) bureaucracy".