Trust deed investing scam

In other cases, fraudsters file fraudulent documents with state or local officials and even register with their local Better Business Bureau using the false names from their fraudulent documents. These fraudsters can be persistent. In cases where victims become suspicious and stop sending money to the fraudsters, the perpetrators have contacted the victims, posing as representatives of the Mexican government or a financial institution and demanded an advance fee or tax purportedly to help the victims recover their money.

Be extremely cautious if anyone requests that you pay money up-front in order to obtain funds or property to which they claim you are entitled. Also, be skeptical of any request to wire money in connection with your timeshare. It is extremely difficult — and often impossible — to recover money wired abroad, and fraudsters with U.

Be wary of high-pressure tactics, which are often indicative of a scam. Fraudsters sound convincing, are very responsive, send you authentic looking paperwork, and sometimes create websites that look legitimate. If you do not know the person with whom you are doing business, be extremely cautious and do extensive due diligence.

If someone offers you investment products or services, such as offering to act as a broker to sell shares they claim you are entitled to, check whether the person or firm is registered with the SEC by using the search tool on Investor.

Remember that scammers can assume the identities of actual brokers. Hire your own lawyer to review real estate transactions and contracts associated with your timeshare. Be wary of hiring lawyers recommended by third parties who make unsolicited offers, as they may not be impartial.

Be aware that scammers may be located far away from where they pretend to operate. For example, they may use technology to make it appear that they are calling from a different location and use a fake address or a mail drop as their business address. Authorities say the deeds probably were sold at a discount by the forger to unwary investors who thought that they were purchasing real loan securities.

The false deeds are causing psychological and financial headaches for the 10 victims, who must spend thousands of dollars and months of their time in a complicated legal procedure to regain clear title to their properties. Advertisement Phony Deeds Act as Liens Because they were recorded as part of county property records, the phony deeds are considered evidence of liens against the properties.

The forged deeds, the latest in a continuing series of such scams, underscore the ease with which false documents can be filed. And because of the huge volume of property transactions, steadily inflating property values and the acceptance of trust deeds as a marketable commodity, California is a favorite target of confidence artists who use bogus trust deeds as collateral for other loans or sell them to investors, said Jack Reed, publisher of Real Estate Investors Monthly, an investment newsletter.

Property owners, as Tustin resident Wayne Overbeck discovered, have no real protection against fraudulent trust deeds because state law does not require notification of owners when the documents are filed. Overbeck, an attorney who teaches communications law at Cal State Fullerton, discovered that he was a deed-scam victim when he received a letter late last month urging him to refinance the loan on his home in Manhattan Beach because interest rates were low.

She deeded the property to Overbeck several years ago when he took over management of her financial affairs. While the solicitation from the mortgage company referred to a loan on the property, Overbeck knew that the mortgage had been paid off nearly two decades ago and that the property was unencumbered. The address to which the documents were to be mailed was a private postal drop on Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance.

He found that the same person--or a person using the same name--had filed nine other trust deeds on the same day last September, all on homes in the South Bay area and all for relatively small amounts of money.

Overbeck decided to call on the owners to see if the deeds were legitimate. Niimi, who plans to mount a campaign for reform of the recording system, said he and Overbeck contacted several others whose property had been encumbered by the deeds Overbeck found.

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