New Homeowners Need To Be Leery of Scam

Scammers are soliciting customers nationwide, who conducted real estate transactions, into paying for useless property records. How the scammers obtain consumers' information so quickly after a transaction is unknownn.

New homeowners in Wisconsin are among the victims of the deed scam. They are deceived by Record Transfer Services' formal letter, which looks like a government bill and asks for an $83 "document fee" for a deed and "real property records" by a certain deadline. 

The letter says to send money to Record Transfer Services — or one of its aliases, Property Transfer Services, Conveyance Transfer Services, Record Retrieval Department and National Deed Service — at an address in South Dakota, Delaware, California or Michigan.

Many first-time home buyers are unfamiliar with the real estate transaction process, said Cori Lamont, director of regulatory affairs with the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

"For people who don't understand the real estate process or that a deed exists, they think they have to pay this," Lamont said.