I recently posted about a con-artist who was trying to buy one of my listings. Thank goodness for the Internet. It is so easy to track people and their history today, I'm surprised some of these scammers stay at it. I hope the quick access to information is making their lives harder.
I received an interesting call Friday. A former client of mine wanted some information on a 
deal his parents were recently involved in. It seems the buyer walked at the last minute and didn't follow through with his purchase. His parents were the sellers of a piece of land and were having trouble selling it because it is a land-locked property.
I had declined the listing due to the legal issues that were certain to explode during the process. I could easily see them spending thousands of dollars to accomplish what they already had every right to do, but the owners surrounding their property were being unreasonable.
A buyer showed up out of nowhere and made a discounted offer. He came out, walked the property and sent a contract. They accepted it and waited for closing. They day of closing, he didn't show, call or anything else. They sent me the contract, which wasn't really a contract at all. They were selling on their own, so they didn't have the advantage of a Realtor watching their back.
The seller had created his own contract, but it didn't name the buyer anywhere on the contract. It just stated the sellers were selling their property for $xxxx on a certain date. A few weeks later, another local agent called them to get some information on their property. It appears that this same buyer was now listing and selling the same property.
In similar fashion, he had created a contract, listed an office where he was a listing broker and this time he added a phone number. None of those items were on the last contract. This time, the office was located in a community nearby, but it was a UPS store with a series suites attached that were also supposed to be his. They were restaurants.
I'm a little puzzled why the buyer's agent didn't question the contract, but that's a question for his broker. The scammer had told the buyer's agent that the owners had died and left him the land in their will. They are are very much alive and a bit irritated. The buyer's agent did get curious after a few things didn't ring true and did a little research and found the owners.
The sad part of this tale is that the scammer is an inactive state Realtor. His license is less than a month inactive. In about two hours, I was able to uncover the full extent of his scam through Internet searches. The owners have enlisted the police and hopefully, they are pulling a sting on him in the immediate future. I am also pointing the owners to the state licensing agency to file a complaint.
Why would anyone do this kind of thing in the current information overload environment? This guy did go to extremes to keep his tracks covered, but there are just too many moving parts in a real estate deal to hid everything. Sooner or later something is going to slip. He was really good at keeping his name off all documents. He did create a few real estate brokerage names that don't exist, but personally, he has stayed in the shadows. Be careful out there friends. Scams are alive and well.
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