17 ms·

A copy of your property deed costs $3 – this SoCal firm will do it for $89

179 points by ilamont 7y ago

cynusx 7y ago
There's a similar scam in europe with trademark registrations, funnily enough there are more than one operator trying this so you get 3 or 4 of invoices to register your trademark after you've registered your trademark.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  This is common not just in SoCal, but across the US, with property deeds, mortgage insurance, lots of shady businesses preying on the ignorance of property owners when public record transactions are updated. A simple fix would be to dictate, through legislation, that you can't provide a government service such as a copy of your deed at a cost substantially above the cost the government is providing it at.
  - OedipusRex 7y ago
    Same thing happens to website owners, I get a ton of mail with convincing enough fake bills for scam services.
  - frgotmylogin 7y ago
    A nonprofit that mails to lists based on the same thing, but with a postcard listing common scams would be pretty cool. I was shocked by how much of this stuff I got when I bought a house.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I would be very interested in partnering with local outreach groups and/or Code For America to spin this up with Lob. After a postcard is designed, the only cost should be postage (which, based on Lob's pricing, looks to be between 41 cents and $1 per piece) and some compute time for taking property record data and generating mail pieces with API calls to Lob. Not a permanent solution, but an effective shim until regulation catches up. "Department of Hotfixes"
      - frgotmylogin 7y ago
        Let me know if you do it!
- docdeek 7y ago
  Another similar scam in France when you register a company - you’ll get a half dozen official looking letters asking for a payment of hundreds of euros for a stamp and inclusion in their registry of businesses. Usually has a deadline of within 31 days of registration of the business, and a note that looks official that should be kept for the accountant. All rubbish, of course, and reliant on people who are unaware of what is actually required to register a business paying every damn bill that arrives to be sure to be on the right side of the law.
  - mamon 7y ago
    Same thing happens in Poland.
- Goz3rr 7y ago
  Something similar happens if you own a domain name. They'll send you an "invoice" for your domain by email or physical post hoping that someone who doesn't know too much about IT or just blindly pays invoices to fall for it. If you read the fine print it actually says that it's not an invoice but an offer to transfer to their registrar or something.
  - duskwuff 7y ago
    Don't forget the offers for "important" (actually worthless) services related to your domain, like search engine listings or other useless SEO services. Thankfully, increased privacy on WHOIS records have clamped down on these practices.
- koolba 7y ago
  That scam exists in the USA too. Anybody with their contact details on file gets a barrage of scamola emails and snail mail.
  - telesilla 7y ago
    I got one of these last week and almost lazily put it on the to-be-paid pile until I realized that I had a memory of paying for it already on the USPTO site, and double checked. They made it seem old school enough that it could have been a government letter.
- kohanz 7y ago
  I just got one of these this week! Only $3,000 to register the trademark "internationally", but they try their best to make it seem like it's part of the registration process you've already undertaken and you simply need to sign & submit to move forward.
- gk1 7y ago
  I got a bunch of these "trademark protection" bills after registering a trademark this year. Very official-looking. First one almost had me fooled, but then I caught onto it.
- GordonS 7y ago
  Can confirm, this has been going on for at least 15 years, so enough people must fall for it. Which is kind of remarkable, given as you say, you tend to receive 3-4 of these demands at once. They are quite good at looking "official" though, and always have company names that you'd think private companies wouldn't even be permitted to use. Given how long this has been going on, and given the EU's somewhat notorious legislative machine, it's also quite ridiculous that these scams haven't been outlawed yet.
axaxs 7y ago
Ugh. This reminds me of the USPS address change scam. Just type "change address" into Google and see how many Ad results for this are thrown in top of your search results. They are all semi official looking, and charge you. I'm ashamed to admit I fell victim to one of these after a very long day of moving and a few beers years back. The USPS offers this for $1(not free, thanks ebg13)! I blame myself, but do wonder why Google allows and even promotes these sites...
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Make sure to mash that "SERP Feedback" button when the result for your search isn't the appropriate/official result.
  - echelon 7y ago
    Google doesn't do a damn thing about the feedback. Every time I search for my bank's routing number, the first result that pops up is a fishy looking 3rd party website. The numbers are accurate (for now?), but it's super sketchy. My bank's results are three or four slots down the list. I keep complaining and Google does nothing. It may just as well be an elevator "close door" button.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I recommend you only obtain routing numbers from within your bank's mobile app or website. Can't speak for all banks, but Chase, Fidelity, and Schwab all list your routing and account numbers prominently when logged in (and some financial institutions have different routing numbers depending on your use case, a wire vs a direct deposit for example). To your point about Google feedback, sadness, but unsurprising.
      - jcranmer 7y ago
        If you have physical checks, it's printed directly on the check on the bottom.
umeshunni 7y ago
I fell for a similar scam recently. I needed a copy of a birth certificate and my county's website was a mess and required showing up in person at the county office. I found a site like this that promised to make the process smoother and paid something like $50 for it and all they did was fill out the forms and mail it to me so that I could go stand in line at the county office.
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  I'd personally reverse the charge on my card. If enough people do it they'll lose their business
- catalogia 7y ago
  For me the frustration is often the opposite. I show up to places in person because I'd rather talk to human beings and fill out paper forms than use their shitty website. Yet more and more often once I show up I'm told to use one of their computers to access their website. I could have done that from home!
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Heh, I was at the Apple store in Paris and couldn’t understand why people had printed off pieces of paper and marking things off based on their research on the computers there. Like, how could you not do the research yourself in advance? I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn’t already have access to internet elsewhere to do their research.
    - wgjordan 7y ago
      > I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn’t already have access to internet elsewhere to do their research. Perhaps someone at the Apple Store is there to purchase a device that will give them access to the Internet which they don't currently have elsewhere?
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Toronto became known to never give you a court date if you filed for a court date on your parking ticket. You did have to apply in person. And someone did create a page where you could pay $10 and they would wait in line for you. So at least sometimes you are buying a real service.
nkrisc 7y ago
I receive stuff like this all the time because one of my cars will be out of the manufacturer's warranty soon. They masquerade as if they're form the OEM and offering to sell me additional coverage. Even though this has nothing to do with government services they still manage to make them seem "official" and alarming if you don't take any action ("You could be liable for thousands of dollars of damages!"). I'm actually more pissed at the OEM for giving these companies my information.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  It's typically not OEMs. DMVs and other auto industry participants sell your VIN, vehicle, and address info. These extended warranties are extremely lucrative, hence why so much effort goes into marketing them. https://www.google.com/search?q=extended+warranty+spam https://www.google.com/search?q=extended+warranty+spam
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    Thank you, I was wondering how to use that darned Google.com website. That said, if you have a particular source that you would like to direct me attention to, I'd be interested in knowing because none of the first few results seemed to have anything relating to your comment, beyond the already established fact that yes, they are scams.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I included the link to give a quick overview without polluting the thread, as there is no one blog post or resource that outlines the many issues with that particular industry. If you'd like to know more, please feel free to email me (email in profile). I know someone who sells these products, and was asked to invest to scale up volume (politely declined after researching and reviewing materials provided for due diligence), so I have context that a resource like Consumer Reports or The Balance might not have.
- fortran77 7y ago
  You'll get these calls and mail whether or not you own a car and no matter what the warranty status is.
adrr 7y ago
Problem is easy to fix without explicitly outlawing the practices. If business is selling government records, they need to disclose the actual cost in a defined format on a separate insert. Violations are similar to canned spam law and have a statutory damages of $750 per violation.
- onion2k 7y ago
  For that to work you'd need to demonstrate the business is actually charging $80 for the deed ... but they're not. Deep in the fine print there'll be something about the cost being $3 for the deed and $86 for the "proof-reading, checking, and validation service to ensure you have included the necessary information for your deed request to be completed promptly". Regulating against services that claim to help people would be very difficult.
  - bradstewart 7y ago
    As long as that is called out explicitly, people can make a (more) informed decision about whether or not those additional services are worth $86. If I see "the document itself costs $3, additional <something> $86"; I'm much more realize I may be able to procure said document through other channels. EDIT: grammar.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    I think OP meant just for the violation of not properly displaying the base cost of the service if you went to the county/city directly if you phrase it properly it doesn't matter how much they charge as 'proof reading' services if they don't show people that it only costs $3 directly they can get fined for all the purchases made since it was last properly displayed wiping out their profits. I think also forcing them to link out to either the direct form or at least some page explaining how to submit the form directly to the government would also be a good idea in addition to forcing them to just show the base cost. Force them to provide an actual value add instead of just fleecing people looking for the correct way to do something.
    - JoshuaDavid 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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ims 7y ago
Another version of the grift is to scrape lists of newly registered businesses and send out an official looking letter charging $80 to send a laminated poster of the kind that some states mandate be posted, e.g. about workers' comp. Except that these materials can typically be printed out for free, and the letter makes every effort to appear to be a mandatory bill coming from a government agency.
- cornellwright 7y ago
  I once had 3 guys in suits show up to a new office my work had opened. They acted very official, asked to see our labor posters. I told them we don't have any (should've asked for ID right then). They told me I could avoid a fine if I bought some from them on the spot. At that point I caught on, asked for ID - they showed me something official looking that didn't actually say they were government. Once I asked them point blank if they worked for the government they admitted it was a private company and I told them to leave. It was a total scam, but it did make us be sure to get our labor posters hung up though. (We just asked our payroll provider to send them to us and they were free.)
thefrog 7y ago
This trick is as old as dirt. How is this a story?
chooseaname 7y ago
> Senders of official-looking direct mail get around these restrictions by including language — often in fine print — declaring that the correspondence is not in fact official. Ban fine print. Honestly. Anything that declares the correspondence is not official has to be in the same point size as the body of the text, separated out into it's own paragraph in plain no uncertain terms that the majority of adults could understand.
- technofiend 7y ago
  I worked at a title company and owned the escrow and documentation preparation software. At the time they used line printers to print on carbon copy forms. Each page was differently colored so the "original" was always the white top copy. Getting a new copy of the paperwork was of course expensive and only the original was accepted for certain purposes. We had a very interesting conversation with the doc prep department when I moved everything to using high speed laserjet printers. "Which one is the original, now?" The end result was someone buying a large rubber stamp that read "Original." :-)
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    A friend worked had a government contractor as a client that had to use a specific, 8-9 part carbon form because the form was referenced in law and had to be used. Due to other issues, the law couldn’t be amended. At some point, it became difficult to get a printer and paper that would work with that many imprints!
    - technofiend 7y ago
      That's actually what drove the title company to switch to laser: the forms kept getting thicker and the bottom layer impression was too faint.
  - jagged-chisel 7y ago
    I'd have repeated: "they're identical. doesn't matter. but I got a stamp to tell you which one." "they're identical. doesn't matter. but I got a stamp to tell you which one."
xenospn 7y ago
For every "unnecessary and burdensome regulation" in the books people love complaining about so much, there are people like these who exploit and profit off of loopholes in the system.
- linksnapzz 7y ago
  The rate at which exploitation of people (via exploitation of loopholes) occurs does not have a continuous positive linear correlation with the number and complexity of the regulations.
mmanfrin 7y ago
When I bought my house, I very nearly fell for this. They are very official looking, with faux degraded copying artifacts on a 'proof' deed. Even if currently legal, this is absolutely a scam.
rtb 7y ago
Surely this is just fraud, i.e. obtaining money by deception? Do they really need a new law to ban this, or do they need to enforce the existing laws better?
itake 7y ago
This happens all the time in Florida when you register an LLC or get licensed as a real estate agent. It's a shame.
mcv 7y ago
I understand that these scammers automatically send their letters whenever something changes about an address. Wouldn't it be a fantastic public service if someone else automatically sent those same people a letter warning them of this scam and directing them towards more honest services?
usaphp 7y ago
> Washington state fined Local Records Office more than $3.6 million several years ago for allegedly violating state law “at least 256,998 times.” How do they still exist and continue making the same thing? What's the point of this fine if it does not change anything?
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  See virtually any fine against any industry ever. It never stops behavior. It just lets the government in on the action
arrty88 7y ago
I bought a house last month and received this same exact letter from a similar firm asking for $79 doll hairs. What a trick.
elchief 7y ago
I recently had to get personal workers compensation insurance for a contract (bc). Could have gone through a service to do it. Employer would have paid. Would cost them $6000/year, with a ~$2400 tax liability to me. Did it myself for $10/month and ten minutes filling out a form
altacc 7y ago
There are so many of these scams out there. The internet allows people to google to check if it's legit, but they'll also find a lot of online firms offering the same service at a markup, which helps convince people that the original letter was legit. In the UK it's free to change your name, you can just write your name change on a peice of paper, get a couple of friends to sign it and you're done. I've done this, but when I tried to explain to someone else the free process they told me I was wrong, citing scam websites with semi-official names that charged for the process.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Same with « will kits » that are a template that you fill out. And the legal jurisprudence in Canada that make them valid is a farmer getting stuck under his tractor scratching in his will in the fender with a rock.
rolltiide 7y ago
When you form a new business entity the firms that help you do it will charge $50-$100 for an EIN number from the IRS. This is the tax ID for artificial persons, whereas the SSN is the tax ID for natural persons. You can get an EIN from the IRS online for free in 5 minutes.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
It's not just private companies you have to worry about doing this. After you buy a property my local government sends you an mandatory looking survey in an attempt to a) rat on the previous owner for un-permitted improvements b) build a case for valuing your house higher for taxes c) preemptively admit to non-compliance with city specific laws you probably don't know about yet. I was going to write a letter to the local newspaper but I thought better of drawing attention to myself that way.
cabaalis 7y ago
I hold a belief in small government, but the spam mail I've been receiving since building a house cries loudly for regulation. They make this stuff look so official. They use IRS fonts. They print it on pink paper. They write "final notice" when that's meaningless. They have your PII from the public records and make it look like it's from your mortgage group. That kind of business should be treated as fraud. Who knows how many elderly or otherwise have lost tons of money from these garbage "companies." They should be ashamed.
- smhinsey 7y ago
  Some of this really is pretty wild. I got junk mail within a few weeks of closing that was made to look like fake late/missed payment notices and foreclosure warnings and insurance mistakes and all sorts of horrible lies. I am curious if they maintain the quality of the illusion further into the scam but not curious enough to find out.
- draw_down 7y ago
  > I hold a belief in small government, but the spam mail I've been receiving since building a house cries loudly for regulation. Yeah, totally. Maybe there's some other stuff that also cries out for regulation!
- azinman2 7y ago
  Regulation exists to protect people, property, the environment, or national interests. It largely comes from a reaction to harms. That’s not to say things evolve and regulation should keep up (or that it’s ineffective for its goals), but I don’t understand why there’s such a fervent backlash against it, particularly from the right. It largely feels fueled by those who wish to profit from its undermining, and one particular party has let it be known they’re open for business in that respect. Did these concerns exist in say, the 1960s? 1910s?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - kortilla 7y ago
fortran77 7y ago
If you have a business of any sort, there are companies that look for business licenses, LLC formations, etc, and send official looking forms sometimes with fine print saying they're not the Government and sometimes without, offering to do the same thing you can do for a small fee for a much bigger one. They're not adding any value at all. The form you have to fill out for the government requires the same information as their form. I probably get at least one of these a month. Everything from trademark renewal to burglar alarm permit renewal.
rickdeckard 7y ago
> "When Brusius altered the name on her deed, that may have triggered the solicitation." Sorry in Advance, I'm not familiar with this formal process. If the whole exchange is triggered by completing the property deed, what's the service this company claims to provide for $89? I understand it's a scam, but what is the "alibi-service" they deliver in return for the payment?
ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
As the owner of a couple of corporations, I get crap like this all the time; often with implicit threats of legal repercussions. The letters can look VERY official; sometimes almost clones of official state mailings.
growt 7y ago
Same thing here in Germany. Once you have a registered company you'll receive lots of official looking invoices from scammers for some sort of register.
shanecleveland 7y ago
I've seen this for trademark maintenance fees. They send an official-liking letter saying it is time to file required paperwork and pay fees, which is true, but they charge double to do what you can do yourself in five minutes on the official USPTO website. Services like this for getting a copy of your birth certificate, too. Basically pay to access the freely available form from state websites.
iamben 7y ago
I have a few domains without private registration. I often get an email a few months before they're due to expire from a business that will renew them. It's very strongly worded about how I'm about to "lose them", lots of capital letters and lots of red text. The cost to renew is $90 or so. I've often wondered how many people fall for it (I assume enough they keep doing it), and whether they actually renew them, or just take some money and run.
- bt3 7y ago
  Through the years I've bought domains for hobby projects and such that ultimately I'll let expire. Usually after receiving tons of emails, such as you've described, it's followed by a "we now own your domain, pay up" threat. I've even had firms purchase other extensions for my domain (particularly a .org, .net, or .co), then email me asking to buy it from them. I usually respond and tell them I'm selling the .com domain myself and they can purchase it directly from me for half of the price they're offering to sell me the other extensions. No one has ever taken me up on my offer.
  - _jal 7y ago
    Be careful making flip counteroffers like that, if you actually do care about the domains at all. Offering to sell can be twisted into "extortion" in a UDRP proceeding if you're not careful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Re...
    - bt3 7y ago
      A fair warning. Wouldn't any engaged legal group understand that if I had registered the .com first, then a company was offering to sell me a .org, etc. after my purchase, that is more extortionist than me trying to recoup the registration fees of a domain name I no longer need? Agree if I want to keep the domain, I'd be careful not to lead anyone on - scammer or otherwise.
      - 7y ago
shanecleveland 7y ago
Reminds me of https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/cab-lost-found-scam/ https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/cab-lost-found-scam/ Pay shame site to "submit" items lost in NYC taxis. I think all it does is post your submission to the site so it is publicly viewable.
bxparks 7y ago
I received about 20 of these scam letters after buying a house. I kept all of them in a folder for my records. One thing that I noticed is that all these scam letters included a no-postage-required, Business Reply Mail envelope. I guess they make so much money off these scams that they can pay the return postage. I returned all of these envelopes filled to the max with random pieces of junk paper. BUT, I made sure that my name and address (or zip code) did not appear in anything that I sent back. If I understand the USPS rates correctly (https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm), each returned mail costs them $1.38. Maybe if enough people sent these envelopes back (with junk), the low hit rate compared to cost of the returned letters would make this business unprofitable.
- Namrog84 7y ago
  Counter point. If this(free postage) is an easy and good proxy for detecting this type of scam. By doing this they might stop(doing free postage) . And then you and others lose their easy no effor detection?
  - munk-a 7y ago
    "General, the secret weapon is ready to fire" 'Oh gosh, wait a moment, I just realized that as soon as we fire the secret weapon it stops being a secret, that's like 99% of the value of it - we must forever abstain from firing the secret weapon so that we always maintain a position of power where we have a secret weapon we can fire - but golly gee willikers make sure our enemies never discover our secret weapon!'
- cbsks 7y ago
  I do that with every piece of junk mail that I receive that has a business reply envelope. I thought that I was the only one!
- tombert 7y ago
  I did something similar with the Peter Popoff scam letters...I would either fill it with old dead batteries, or just go outside and fill it to the brim with dirt. Nothing really identifiable with that, and it was a was a relatively easy way to cost him money.
tylerchilds 7y ago
This reminds me of how San Mateo county uses a third-party petdata.com for licensing dogs. I made a faux-website complaining about how easy it would be to create an official looking scam website, particularly how the entire county uses .org domain names. Fake website: http://sanmateogov.org/ http://sanmateogov.org/
lordnacho 7y ago
Ever tried travelling to the US? If you look for the ESTA site the official site looks less legit than the scam sites.
- kube-system 7y ago
  The ESTA site looks like it uses the US government's standard design system, and it has a .gov domain. Identifying official US government websites is like the easiest thing on the internet -- the US is the only country in the world with their own TLD dedicated to government websites. I can't think of a more 'legit' look than that, although I guess if you're not from the US you probably haven't visited US government websites very often and might not have much of a reference point.
scandox 7y ago
Americans simply have no idea how (relatively) straightforward and simple their model of property purchase, sale and ownership are. In Ireland you get this letter in 8 point font from a company with no phone number demanding 1000 euro for ground rent and threatening you with legal action....AND it turns out to be completely legitimate because The Earl of Blah Blah and the Archbishop of such and such owned your ground rent until 1978 (when the Irish government finally ended the feudal system) and they sold it to some shifty operator who now collects and you're in arrears on your 11 euro per year since then and they've added admin charges...oh and you can buy out your ground rent, but you have to fill out a 12 page form and make sure you don't pay them unless you've confirmed they're the sole rights holder and if you forget to pay and the lease expires (you know because the solicitor forgot to mention the 275 year lease was expiring or something) then they own your house OR you have to pay them 1/8th of the value to claw back the house you bought perfectly legitimately. Mild hyperbole here.
- dbdjfjrjvebd 7y ago
  Leasehold is evil.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Historically Leasehold was a necessary evil when two or more owners occupy the same 2D real property, as is common for example with flats (or "apartments" in US English) or where they unavoidably share parts of the property. England (and perhaps other places?) tried to fix this with Commondhold. The idea in Commonhold is pretty similar to Leasehold except that the Freehold of the 2D real property is held by a purpose made entity whose constituents are the owners of the properties contained in the Commonhold, so there can't be some dodgy offshore property holding company involved, between them the people who seem to own the place really do own it outright. Most likely they'll choose to outsource day-to-day management to a company which specialises just as the property holding company does, but as joint owners they have powers to fire that management company or demand to inspect its finances to see everything is done properly, and if somebody thinks they can do better (or has far too much free time on their hands) that's an option with consent of the other owners, it's nobody else's business. Unfortunately Commonhold was not a success. The tax status means that you can sell say 12 flats on Leasehold for £100 000 each, and then also sell the Freehold to a holding company for say £60 000. But if you offer those 12 flats as Commonhold, leaving nothing else to sell, the buyers will be reluctant to part with £105 000 each even though there's a good chance that Freeholder will ask for say £1000pa ground rent, so they'd be clearly ahead after just five years. So as a property builder it made no sense to sell Commondhold properties - the government didn't ban Leasehold for new properties, so Leasehold it is in almost every case.
United857 7y ago
Perhaps the solution is for local governments to not make this data publically available en-masse (or at least anonymize it)? Genuinely curious -- what valid non-commercial use case does publicly knowing the names, prices, etc. of everyone who bought/sold a house serve?
munificent 7y ago
> The solution, I’ll say again, is a law that prohibits nonofficial communications from appearing to be official — with hefty fines for crossing the line. Jail time. Fines means that the law is simply another part of the business's cost calculations. If the fine is low enough, and it often is, then it can still be "good business" to knowingly break the law, pay the fine, and still pull a profit. Putting actual law-breaking humans in jail changes the cost-benefit analysis dramatically.
- mamon 7y ago
  Putting people in jail for small scale, non-violent crimes isn't a good idea - it can convert petty thief into real criminal. People who have jail time on their permanent record feel like they have nothing left to lose, and go all-in on their criminal career.
  - munificent 7y ago
    If your entire multi-million dollar business hinges on manipulating people into believing you are something you are not so that they send you money without being provided any value in return, you aren't a petty thief. You are a large-scale criminal enterprise and deserve to be treated as such. This dude's a parasite on society.
neonate 7y ago
http://archive.is/5hU9H http://archive.is/5hU9H
Hamuko 7y ago
I've encountered something very similar, although not in the US. When you register a business, that is public knowledge and can be acquired by marketers very easily. Then someone calls you up, makes you believe that they are the tax authorities (although very carefully never saying that they are) and get you to pay for a registration, which might make a new entrepreneur confused and think that they need this to be VAT registered. Those who sign up have actually signed up to be in a shitty business directory made by someone's 14-year-old nephew. They provide nothing of value since no one uses their website and there are free business directories that just add your business as soon as it hits the tax authorities' database. But they will claim that they are providing you with crucial advertising. If you don't pay up, they will say that you have a valid contract with them and you have to pay, or else. If you wish to hear the contract between you and them, they will say that the recording is purely for judicial action - you're not getting it. So unless you record all of your calls, you have no copy of the contract. The sums are not massive. Maybe 300 euros. Definitely valuable, but perhaps not so valuable that you want to waste your time fighting it.
sol_remmy2 7y ago
The business behind this is a Washington State corporation - LA INVESTORS LLC. Is there anyway to find the names of the investors behind this business? The least we can do is expose the scammers responsible for this
- seandougall 7y ago
  That company name is listed on https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/ https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/ (the record does not have a unique URL to link to, sorry). There is one officer listed, but it looks like the LLC was dissolved in 2016. I wonder if they're continuing operations anyway, or is somebody else spoofing their name somehow?
coding123 7y ago
Same scams exist for: Hotels (when you're booking, are you SURE you're booking with the actual hotel?) They may be collecting money to simply reserve the room under your name, but not pay for it - even if they just charged you the same amount. A $119 charge to call the hotel and put in your name. Health Insurance (When you enter your phone number/email/name there are companies that simply collect money by re-sending your contact info to about 100 sub-scam companies. You may end up with insurance but through the worst types of people that have resold and resold. Oh and don't forget you'll be on some of the WORST robocalling services. Pretty much all CC fraud "watch" services - especially if your own credit card company signed you up. Taking out a line of credit, if it was not valid - is already something you are protected against. If you have someone to "watch" that stuff for you, it's not really protecting you further.
rsclient 7y ago
The first indication I got that my patent was accepted was a letter offering me a nice "official" plaque with the patent on it. A few days later, my boss showed up with a thank-you gift.
droithomme 7y ago
Even $3 is high for just a copy of the deed. I always do my own title search when buying property. You go to the courthouse and you just go back one page at a time. Each deed references the previous ones. You copy each on the photocopier there which if you live in a fair and reasonable county costs 10-25 cents a page. Or you can even bring your own scanner in if you like. Go back 100 years or so. Then at your leisure later review each of these for liens and encumbrances. And also whack problems with the boundary descriptions, or questionable issues with right of way. Doing this is way more valuable than paying hundreds to somebody to hand you off something they are pretending to be a proper title search.
foogazi 7y ago
Why can’t the USPS block mail spam?
tomxor 7y ago
> Section 17200 bans “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice, and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising.” Senders of official-looking direct mail get around these restrictions by including language — often in fine print — declaring that the correspondence is not in fact official. Such a disclosure makes it the consumer’s responsibility to figure out what’s happening. How could putting such information in fine-print escape any definition of "deception" when the obscurity of that information is vital to their operation. On the face of it, it seems more likely they are illegal yet unchallenged. I doubt they would hold up in any reasonable court of law.
test6554 7y ago
I almost wish that there were different kinds of stamps for different kinds of mail. Personal, Government/Official, Commercial. You simply apply the correct kind of stamp for the correct kind of mail and then the recipient can be more aware of the scam.
spoontoeat 7y ago
I fell for this with "First Documents" for a total of almost $93 a year or so ago. Also received a solicitation from "Local Records Office" as stated in this article. When the second of the two arrived I knew I had been had. I reported it to my Credit Card company as fraud given the official looking nature of everything, and they promptly refunded the purchase.

179 points by ilamont 7y ago

There's a similar scam in europe with trademark registrations, funnily enough there are more than one operator trying this so you get 3 or 4 of invoices to register your trademark after you've registered your trademark.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
This is common not just in SoCal, but across the US, with property deeds, mortgage insurance, lots of shady businesses preying on the ignorance of property owners when public record transactions are updated. A simple fix would be to dictate, through legislation, that you can't provide a government service such as a copy of your deed at a cost substantially above the cost the government is providing it at.
- OedipusRex 7y ago
  Same thing happens to website owners, I get a ton of mail with convincing enough fake bills for scam services.
- frgotmylogin 7y ago
  A nonprofit that mails to lists based on the same thing, but with a postcard listing common scams would be pretty cool. I was shocked by how much of this stuff I got when I bought a house.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I would be very interested in partnering with local outreach groups and/or Code For America to spin this up with Lob. After a postcard is designed, the only cost should be postage (which, based on Lob's pricing, looks to be between 41 cents and $1 per piece) and some compute time for taking property record data and generating mail pieces with API calls to Lob. Not a permanent solution, but an effective shim until regulation catches up. "Department of Hotfixes"
    - frgotmylogin 7y ago
      Let me know if you do it!
docdeek 7y ago
Another similar scam in France when you register a company - you’ll get a half dozen official looking letters asking for a payment of hundreds of euros for a stamp and inclusion in their registry of businesses. Usually has a deadline of within 31 days of registration of the business, and a note that looks official that should be kept for the accountant. All rubbish, of course, and reliant on people who are unaware of what is actually required to register a business paying every damn bill that arrives to be sure to be on the right side of the law.
- mamon 7y ago
  Same thing happens in Poland.
Goz3rr 7y ago
Something similar happens if you own a domain name. They'll send you an "invoice" for your domain by email or physical post hoping that someone who doesn't know too much about IT or just blindly pays invoices to fall for it. If you read the fine print it actually says that it's not an invoice but an offer to transfer to their registrar or something.
- duskwuff 7y ago
  Don't forget the offers for "important" (actually worthless) services related to your domain, like search engine listings or other useless SEO services. Thankfully, increased privacy on WHOIS records have clamped down on these practices.
koolba 7y ago
That scam exists in the USA too. Anybody with their contact details on file gets a barrage of scamola emails and snail mail.
- telesilla 7y ago
  I got one of these last week and almost lazily put it on the to-be-paid pile until I realized that I had a memory of paying for it already on the USPTO site, and double checked. They made it seem old school enough that it could have been a government letter.
kohanz 7y ago
I just got one of these this week! Only $3,000 to register the trademark "internationally", but they try their best to make it seem like it's part of the registration process you've already undertaken and you simply need to sign & submit to move forward.
gk1 7y ago
I got a bunch of these "trademark protection" bills after registering a trademark this year. Very official-looking. First one almost had me fooled, but then I caught onto it.
GordonS 7y ago
Can confirm, this has been going on for at least 15 years, so enough people must fall for it. Which is kind of remarkable, given as you say, you tend to receive 3-4 of these demands at once. They are quite good at looking "official" though, and always have company names that you'd think private companies wouldn't even be permitted to use. Given how long this has been going on, and given the EU's somewhat notorious legislative machine, it's also quite ridiculous that these scams haven't been outlawed yet.

axaxs 7y ago

Ugh. This reminds me of the USPS address change scam. Just type "change address" into Google and see how many Ad results for this are thrown in top of your search results. They are all semi official looking, and charge you. I'm ashamed to admit I fell victim to one of these after a very long day of moving and a few beers years back. The USPS offers this for $1(not free, thanks ebg13)! I blame myself, but do wonder why Google allows and even promotes these sites...

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Make sure to mash that "SERP Feedback" button when the result for your search isn't the appropriate/official result.
- echelon 7y ago
  Google doesn't do a damn thing about the feedback. Every time I search for my bank's routing number, the first result that pops up is a fishy looking 3rd party website. The numbers are accurate (for now?), but it's super sketchy. My bank's results are three or four slots down the list. I keep complaining and Google does nothing. It may just as well be an elevator "close door" button.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I recommend you only obtain routing numbers from within your bank's mobile app or website. Can't speak for all banks, but Chase, Fidelity, and Schwab all list your routing and account numbers prominently when logged in (and some financial institutions have different routing numbers depending on your use case, a wire vs a direct deposit for example). To your point about Google feedback, sadness, but unsurprising.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      If you have physical checks, it's printed directly on the check on the bottom.

umeshunni 7y ago

I fell for a similar scam recently. I needed a copy of a birth certificate and my county's website was a mess and required showing up in person at the county office. I found a site like this that promised to make the process smoother and paid something like $50 for it and all they did was fill out the forms and mail it to me so that I could go stand in line at the county office.

whamlastxmas 7y ago
I'd personally reverse the charge on my card. If enough people do it they'll lose their business
catalogia 7y ago
For me the frustration is often the opposite. I show up to places in person because I'd rather talk to human beings and fill out paper forms than use their shitty website. Yet more and more often once I show up I'm told to use one of their computers to access their website. I could have done that from home!
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Heh, I was at the Apple store in Paris and couldn’t understand why people had printed off pieces of paper and marking things off based on their research on the computers there. Like, how could you not do the research yourself in advance? I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn’t already have access to internet elsewhere to do their research.
  - wgjordan 7y ago
    > I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn’t already have access to internet elsewhere to do their research. Perhaps someone at the Apple Store is there to purchase a device that will give them access to the Internet which they don't currently have elsewhere?
Scoundreller 7y ago
Toronto became known to never give you a court date if you filed for a court date on your parking ticket. You did have to apply in person. And someone did create a page where you could pay $10 and they would wait in line for you. So at least sometimes you are buying a real service.

nkrisc 7y ago

I receive stuff like this all the time because one of my cars will be out of the manufacturer's warranty soon. They masquerade as if they're form the OEM and offering to sell me additional coverage. Even though this has nothing to do with government services they still manage to make them seem "official" and alarming if you don't take any action ("You could be liable for thousands of dollars of damages!"). I'm actually more pissed at the OEM for giving these companies my information.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
It's typically not OEMs. DMVs and other auto industry participants sell your VIN, vehicle, and address info. These extended warranties are extremely lucrative, hence why so much effort goes into marketing them. https://www.google.com/search?q=extended+warranty+spam https://www.google.com/search?q=extended+warranty+spam
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Thank you, I was wondering how to use that darned Google.com website. That said, if you have a particular source that you would like to direct me attention to, I'd be interested in knowing because none of the first few results seemed to have anything relating to your comment, beyond the already established fact that yes, they are scams.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I included the link to give a quick overview without polluting the thread, as there is no one blog post or resource that outlines the many issues with that particular industry. If you'd like to know more, please feel free to email me (email in profile). I know someone who sells these products, and was asked to invest to scale up volume (politely declined after researching and reviewing materials provided for due diligence), so I have context that a resource like Consumer Reports or The Balance might not have.
fortran77 7y ago
You'll get these calls and mail whether or not you own a car and no matter what the warranty status is.

adrr 7y ago

Problem is easy to fix without explicitly outlawing the practices. If business is selling government records, they need to disclose the actual cost in a defined format on a separate insert. Violations are similar to canned spam law and have a statutory damages of $750 per violation.

onion2k 7y ago
For that to work you'd need to demonstrate the business is actually charging $80 for the deed ... but they're not. Deep in the fine print there'll be something about the cost being $3 for the deed and $86 for the "proof-reading, checking, and validation service to ensure you have included the necessary information for your deed request to be completed promptly". Regulating against services that claim to help people would be very difficult.
- bradstewart 7y ago
  As long as that is called out explicitly, people can make a (more) informed decision about whether or not those additional services are worth $86. If I see "the document itself costs $3, additional <something> $86"; I'm much more realize I may be able to procure said document through other channels. EDIT: grammar.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  I think OP meant just for the violation of not properly displaying the base cost of the service if you went to the county/city directly if you phrase it properly it doesn't matter how much they charge as 'proof reading' services if they don't show people that it only costs $3 directly they can get fined for all the purchases made since it was last properly displayed wiping out their profits. I think also forcing them to link out to either the direct form or at least some page explaining how to submit the form directly to the government would also be a good idea in addition to forcing them to just show the base cost. Force them to provide an actual value add instead of just fleecing people looking for the correct way to do something.
  - JoshuaDavid 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

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ims 7y ago

Another version of the grift is to scrape lists of newly registered businesses and send out an official looking letter charging $80 to send a laminated poster of the kind that some states mandate be posted, e.g. about workers' comp. Except that these materials can typically be printed out for free, and the letter makes every effort to appear to be a mandatory bill coming from a government agency.

cornellwright 7y ago
I once had 3 guys in suits show up to a new office my work had opened. They acted very official, asked to see our labor posters. I told them we don't have any (should've asked for ID right then). They told me I could avoid a fine if I bought some from them on the spot. At that point I caught on, asked for ID - they showed me something official looking that didn't actually say they were government. Once I asked them point blank if they worked for the government they admitted it was a private company and I told them to leave. It was a total scam, but it did make us be sure to get our labor posters hung up though. (We just asked our payroll provider to send them to us and they were free.)

thefrog 7y ago

This trick is as old as dirt. How is this a story?

chooseaname 7y ago

> Senders of official-looking direct mail get around these restrictions by including language — often in fine print — declaring that the correspondence is not in fact official. Ban fine print. Honestly. Anything that declares the correspondence is not official has to be in the same point size as the body of the text, separated out into it's own paragraph in plain no uncertain terms that the majority of adults could understand.

technofiend 7y ago
I worked at a title company and owned the escrow and documentation preparation software. At the time they used line printers to print on carbon copy forms. Each page was differently colored so the "original" was always the white top copy. Getting a new copy of the paperwork was of course expensive and only the original was accepted for certain purposes. We had a very interesting conversation with the doc prep department when I moved everything to using high speed laserjet printers. "Which one is the original, now?" The end result was someone buying a large rubber stamp that read "Original." :-)
- Spooky23 7y ago
  A friend worked had a government contractor as a client that had to use a specific, 8-9 part carbon form because the form was referenced in law and had to be used. Due to other issues, the law couldn’t be amended. At some point, it became difficult to get a printer and paper that would work with that many imprints!
  - technofiend 7y ago
    That's actually what drove the title company to switch to laser: the forms kept getting thicker and the bottom layer impression was too faint.
- jagged-chisel 7y ago
  I'd have repeated: "they're identical. doesn't matter. but I got a stamp to tell you which one." "they're identical. doesn't matter. but I got a stamp to tell you which one."

xenospn 7y ago

For every "unnecessary and burdensome regulation" in the books people love complaining about so much, there are people like these who exploit and profit off of loopholes in the system.

linksnapzz 7y ago
The rate at which exploitation of people (via exploitation of loopholes) occurs does not have a continuous positive linear correlation with the number and complexity of the regulations.

mmanfrin 7y ago

When I bought my house, I very nearly fell for this. They are very official looking, with faux degraded copying artifacts on a 'proof' deed. Even if currently legal, this is absolutely a scam.

rtb 7y ago

Surely this is just fraud, i.e. obtaining money by deception? Do they really need a new law to ban this, or do they need to enforce the existing laws better?

itake 7y ago

This happens all the time in Florida when you register an LLC or get licensed as a real estate agent. It's a shame.

mcv 7y ago

I understand that these scammers automatically send their letters whenever something changes about an address. Wouldn't it be a fantastic public service if someone else automatically sent those same people a letter warning them of this scam and directing them towards more honest services?

usaphp 7y ago

> Washington state fined Local Records Office more than $3.6 million several years ago for allegedly violating state law “at least 256,998 times.” How do they still exist and continue making the same thing? What's the point of this fine if it does not change anything?

whamlastxmas 7y ago
See virtually any fine against any industry ever. It never stops behavior. It just lets the government in on the action

arrty88 7y ago

I bought a house last month and received this same exact letter from a similar firm asking for $79 doll hairs. What a trick.

elchief 7y ago

I recently had to get personal workers compensation insurance for a contract (bc). Could have gone through a service to do it. Employer would have paid. Would cost them $6000/year, with a ~$2400 tax liability to me. Did it myself for $10/month and ten minutes filling out a form

altacc 7y ago

There are so many of these scams out there. The internet allows people to google to check if it's legit, but they'll also find a lot of online firms offering the same service at a markup, which helps convince people that the original letter was legit. In the UK it's free to change your name, you can just write your name change on a peice of paper, get a couple of friends to sign it and you're done. I've done this, but when I tried to explain to someone else the free process they told me I was wrong, citing scam websites with semi-official names that charged for the process.

Scoundreller 7y ago
Same with « will kits » that are a template that you fill out. And the legal jurisprudence in Canada that make them valid is a farmer getting stuck under his tractor scratching in his will in the fender with a rock.

rolltiide 7y ago

When you form a new business entity the firms that help you do it will charge $50-$100 for an EIN number from the IRS. This is the tax ID for artificial persons, whereas the SSN is the tax ID for natural persons. You can get an EIN from the IRS online for free in 5 minutes.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

It's not just private companies you have to worry about doing this. After you buy a property my local government sends you an mandatory looking survey in an attempt to a) rat on the previous owner for un-permitted improvements b) build a case for valuing your house higher for taxes c) preemptively admit to non-compliance with city specific laws you probably don't know about yet. I was going to write a letter to the local newspaper but I thought better of drawing attention to myself that way.

cabaalis 7y ago

I hold a belief in small government, but the spam mail I've been receiving since building a house cries loudly for regulation. They make this stuff look so official. They use IRS fonts. They print it on pink paper. They write "final notice" when that's meaningless. They have your PII from the public records and make it look like it's from your mortgage group. That kind of business should be treated as fraud. Who knows how many elderly or otherwise have lost tons of money from these garbage "companies." They should be ashamed.

smhinsey 7y ago
Some of this really is pretty wild. I got junk mail within a few weeks of closing that was made to look like fake late/missed payment notices and foreclosure warnings and insurance mistakes and all sorts of horrible lies. I am curious if they maintain the quality of the illusion further into the scam but not curious enough to find out.
draw_down 7y ago
> I hold a belief in small government, but the spam mail I've been receiving since building a house cries loudly for regulation. Yeah, totally. Maybe there's some other stuff that also cries out for regulation!
azinman2 7y ago
Regulation exists to protect people, property, the environment, or national interests. It largely comes from a reaction to harms. That’s not to say things evolve and regulation should keep up (or that it’s ineffective for its goals), but I don’t understand why there’s such a fervent backlash against it, particularly from the right. It largely feels fueled by those who wish to profit from its undermining, and one particular party has let it be known they’re open for business in that respect. Did these concerns exist in say, the 1960s? 1910s?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kortilla 7y ago

fortran77 7y ago

If you have a business of any sort, there are companies that look for business licenses, LLC formations, etc, and send official looking forms sometimes with fine print saying they're not the Government and sometimes without, offering to do the same thing you can do for a small fee for a much bigger one. They're not adding any value at all. The form you have to fill out for the government requires the same information as their form. I probably get at least one of these a month. Everything from trademark renewal to burglar alarm permit renewal.

rickdeckard 7y ago

> "When Brusius altered the name on her deed, that may have triggered the solicitation." Sorry in Advance, I'm not familiar with this formal process. If the whole exchange is triggered by completing the property deed, what's the service this company claims to provide for $89? I understand it's a scam, but what is the "alibi-service" they deliver in return for the payment?

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

As the owner of a couple of corporations, I get crap like this all the time; often with implicit threats of legal repercussions. The letters can look VERY official; sometimes almost clones of official state mailings.

growt 7y ago

Same thing here in Germany. Once you have a registered company you'll receive lots of official looking invoices from scammers for some sort of register.

shanecleveland 7y ago

I've seen this for trademark maintenance fees. They send an official-liking letter saying it is time to file required paperwork and pay fees, which is true, but they charge double to do what you can do yourself in five minutes on the official USPTO website. Services like this for getting a copy of your birth certificate, too. Basically pay to access the freely available form from state websites.

iamben 7y ago

I have a few domains without private registration. I often get an email a few months before they're due to expire from a business that will renew them. It's very strongly worded about how I'm about to "lose them", lots of capital letters and lots of red text. The cost to renew is $90 or so. I've often wondered how many people fall for it (I assume enough they keep doing it), and whether they actually renew them, or just take some money and run.

bt3 7y ago
Through the years I've bought domains for hobby projects and such that ultimately I'll let expire. Usually after receiving tons of emails, such as you've described, it's followed by a "we now own your domain, pay up" threat. I've even had firms purchase other extensions for my domain (particularly a .org, .net, or .co), then email me asking to buy it from them. I usually respond and tell them I'm selling the .com domain myself and they can purchase it directly from me for half of the price they're offering to sell me the other extensions. No one has ever taken me up on my offer.
- _jal 7y ago
  Be careful making flip counteroffers like that, if you actually do care about the domains at all. Offering to sell can be twisted into "extortion" in a UDRP proceeding if you're not careful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Re...
  - bt3 7y ago
    A fair warning. Wouldn't any engaged legal group understand that if I had registered the .com first, then a company was offering to sell me a .org, etc. after my purchase, that is more extortionist than me trying to recoup the registration fees of a domain name I no longer need? Agree if I want to keep the domain, I'd be careful not to lead anyone on - scammer or otherwise.
    - 7y ago

shanecleveland 7y ago

Reminds me of https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/cab-lost-found-scam/ https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/cab-lost-found-scam/ Pay shame site to "submit" items lost in NYC taxis. I think all it does is post your submission to the site so it is publicly viewable.

bxparks 7y ago

I received about 20 of these scam letters after buying a house. I kept all of them in a folder for my records. One thing that I noticed is that all these scam letters included a no-postage-required, Business Reply Mail envelope. I guess they make so much money off these scams that they can pay the return postage. I returned all of these envelopes filled to the max with random pieces of junk paper. BUT, I made sure that my name and address (or zip code) did not appear in anything that I sent back. If I understand the USPS rates correctly (https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm), each returned mail costs them $1.38. Maybe if enough people sent these envelopes back (with junk), the low hit rate compared to cost of the returned letters would make this business unprofitable.

Namrog84 7y ago
Counter point. If this(free postage) is an easy and good proxy for detecting this type of scam. By doing this they might stop(doing free postage) . And then you and others lose their easy no effor detection?
- munk-a 7y ago
  "General, the secret weapon is ready to fire" 'Oh gosh, wait a moment, I just realized that as soon as we fire the secret weapon it stops being a secret, that's like 99% of the value of it - we must forever abstain from firing the secret weapon so that we always maintain a position of power where we have a secret weapon we can fire - but golly gee willikers make sure our enemies never discover our secret weapon!'
cbsks 7y ago
I do that with every piece of junk mail that I receive that has a business reply envelope. I thought that I was the only one!
tombert 7y ago
I did something similar with the Peter Popoff scam letters...I would either fill it with old dead batteries, or just go outside and fill it to the brim with dirt. Nothing really identifiable with that, and it was a was a relatively easy way to cost him money.

tylerchilds 7y ago

This reminds me of how San Mateo county uses a third-party petdata.com for licensing dogs. I made a faux-website complaining about how easy it would be to create an official looking scam website, particularly how the entire county uses .org domain names. Fake website: http://sanmateogov.org/ http://sanmateogov.org/

lordnacho 7y ago

Ever tried travelling to the US? If you look for the ESTA site the official site looks less legit than the scam sites.

kube-system 7y ago
The ESTA site looks like it uses the US government's standard design system, and it has a .gov domain. Identifying official US government websites is like the easiest thing on the internet -- the US is the only country in the world with their own TLD dedicated to government websites. I can't think of a more 'legit' look than that, although I guess if you're not from the US you probably haven't visited US government websites very often and might not have much of a reference point.

scandox 7y ago

Americans simply have no idea how (relatively) straightforward and simple their model of property purchase, sale and ownership are. In Ireland you get this letter in 8 point font from a company with no phone number demanding 1000 euro for ground rent and threatening you with legal action....AND it turns out to be completely legitimate because The Earl of Blah Blah and the Archbishop of such and such owned your ground rent until 1978 (when the Irish government finally ended the feudal system) and they sold it to some shifty operator who now collects and you're in arrears on your 11 euro per year since then and they've added admin charges...oh and you can buy out your ground rent, but you have to fill out a 12 page form and make sure you don't pay them unless you've confirmed they're the sole rights holder and if you forget to pay and the lease expires (you know because the solicitor forgot to mention the 275 year lease was expiring or something) then they own your house OR you have to pay them 1/8th of the value to claw back the house you bought perfectly legitimately. Mild hyperbole here.

dbdjfjrjvebd 7y ago
Leasehold is evil.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Historically Leasehold was a necessary evil when two or more owners occupy the same 2D real property, as is common for example with flats (or "apartments" in US English) or where they unavoidably share parts of the property. England (and perhaps other places?) tried to fix this with Commondhold. The idea in Commonhold is pretty similar to Leasehold except that the Freehold of the 2D real property is held by a purpose made entity whose constituents are the owners of the properties contained in the Commonhold, so there can't be some dodgy offshore property holding company involved, between them the people who seem to own the place really do own it outright. Most likely they'll choose to outsource day-to-day management to a company which specialises just as the property holding company does, but as joint owners they have powers to fire that management company or demand to inspect its finances to see everything is done properly, and if somebody thinks they can do better (or has far too much free time on their hands) that's an option with consent of the other owners, it's nobody else's business. Unfortunately Commonhold was not a success. The tax status means that you can sell say 12 flats on Leasehold for £100 000 each, and then also sell the Freehold to a holding company for say £60 000. But if you offer those 12 flats as Commonhold, leaving nothing else to sell, the buyers will be reluctant to part with £105 000 each even though there's a good chance that Freeholder will ask for say £1000pa ground rent, so they'd be clearly ahead after just five years. So as a property builder it made no sense to sell Commondhold properties - the government didn't ban Leasehold for new properties, so Leasehold it is in almost every case.

United857 7y ago

Perhaps the solution is for local governments to not make this data publically available en-masse (or at least anonymize it)? Genuinely curious -- what valid non-commercial use case does publicly knowing the names, prices, etc. of everyone who bought/sold a house serve?

munificent 7y ago

> The solution, I’ll say again, is a law that prohibits nonofficial communications from appearing to be official — with hefty fines for crossing the line. Jail time. Fines means that the law is simply another part of the business's cost calculations. If the fine is low enough, and it often is, then it can still be "good business" to knowingly break the law, pay the fine, and still pull a profit. Putting actual law-breaking humans in jail changes the cost-benefit analysis dramatically.

mamon 7y ago
Putting people in jail for small scale, non-violent crimes isn't a good idea - it can convert petty thief into real criminal. People who have jail time on their permanent record feel like they have nothing left to lose, and go all-in on their criminal career.
- munificent 7y ago
  If your entire multi-million dollar business hinges on manipulating people into believing you are something you are not so that they send you money without being provided any value in return, you aren't a petty thief. You are a large-scale criminal enterprise and deserve to be treated as such. This dude's a parasite on society.

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.is/5hU9H http://archive.is/5hU9H

Hamuko 7y ago

I've encountered something very similar, although not in the US. When you register a business, that is public knowledge and can be acquired by marketers very easily. Then someone calls you up, makes you believe that they are the tax authorities (although very carefully never saying that they are) and get you to pay for a registration, which might make a new entrepreneur confused and think that they need this to be VAT registered. Those who sign up have actually signed up to be in a shitty business directory made by someone's 14-year-old nephew. They provide nothing of value since no one uses their website and there are free business directories that just add your business as soon as it hits the tax authorities' database. But they will claim that they are providing you with crucial advertising. If you don't pay up, they will say that you have a valid contract with them and you have to pay, or else. If you wish to hear the contract between you and them, they will say that the recording is purely for judicial action - you're not getting it. So unless you record all of your calls, you have no copy of the contract. The sums are not massive. Maybe 300 euros. Definitely valuable, but perhaps not so valuable that you want to waste your time fighting it.

sol_remmy2 7y ago

The business behind this is a Washington State corporation - LA INVESTORS LLC. Is there anyway to find the names of the investors behind this business? The least we can do is expose the scammers responsible for this

seandougall 7y ago
That company name is listed on https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/ https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/ (the record does not have a unique URL to link to, sorry). There is one officer listed, but it looks like the LLC was dissolved in 2016. I wonder if they're continuing operations anyway, or is somebody else spoofing their name somehow?

coding123 7y ago

Same scams exist for: Hotels (when you're booking, are you SURE you're booking with the actual hotel?) They may be collecting money to simply reserve the room under your name, but not pay for it - even if they just charged you the same amount. A $119 charge to call the hotel and put in your name. Health Insurance (When you enter your phone number/email/name there are companies that simply collect money by re-sending your contact info to about 100 sub-scam companies. You may end up with insurance but through the worst types of people that have resold and resold. Oh and don't forget you'll be on some of the WORST robocalling services. Pretty much all CC fraud "watch" services - especially if your own credit card company signed you up. Taking out a line of credit, if it was not valid - is already something you are protected against. If you have someone to "watch" that stuff for you, it's not really protecting you further.

rsclient 7y ago

The first indication I got that my patent was accepted was a letter offering me a nice "official" plaque with the patent on it. A few days later, my boss showed up with a thank-you gift.

droithomme 7y ago

Even $3 is high for just a copy of the deed. I always do my own title search when buying property. You go to the courthouse and you just go back one page at a time. Each deed references the previous ones. You copy each on the photocopier there which if you live in a fair and reasonable county costs 10-25 cents a page. Or you can even bring your own scanner in if you like. Go back 100 years or so. Then at your leisure later review each of these for liens and encumbrances. And also whack problems with the boundary descriptions, or questionable issues with right of way. Doing this is way more valuable than paying hundreds to somebody to hand you off something they are pretending to be a proper title search.

foogazi 7y ago

Why can’t the USPS block mail spam?

tomxor 7y ago

> Section 17200 bans “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice, and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising.” Senders of official-looking direct mail get around these restrictions by including language — often in fine print — declaring that the correspondence is not in fact official. Such a disclosure makes it the consumer’s responsibility to figure out what’s happening. How could putting such information in fine-print escape any definition of "deception" when the obscurity of that information is vital to their operation. On the face of it, it seems more likely they are illegal yet unchallenged. I doubt they would hold up in any reasonable court of law.

test6554 7y ago

I almost wish that there were different kinds of stamps for different kinds of mail. Personal, Government/Official, Commercial. You simply apply the correct kind of stamp for the correct kind of mail and then the recipient can be more aware of the scam.

spoontoeat 7y ago

I fell for this with "First Documents" for a total of almost $93 a year or so ago. Also received a solicitation from "Local Records Office" as stated in this article. When the second of the two arrived I knew I had been had. I reported it to my Credit Card company as fraud given the official looking nature of everything, and they promptly refunded the purchase.