I'm not sure how common this particular scam is but I have inside information to one that happened and wanted to put it out there so people are aware of how easy it is to get on the bad end of a deal if you don't do your due dilligence.
A few years ago my sister-in-law got a job for a J&J research facility in Puerto Rico. So she put her home in Santo Domingo on the market and left for Puerto Rico.
At some point someone broke the locks on the home and changed them with locks that this person had the key for. This person took down the for sale signs and put up their own. This person got a buyer one day. The buyer, whom my sister-in-law did meet, thought everything was good just because the person who responded to the calls and showed the house had the keys.
But the seller of course did not have a title and promised the buyer the title would come after the purchase. The buyer believed this and continued with the deal. After all the seller did have the keys so what could be wrong. So the buyer paid 1/3 of the sale price to the seller as a deposit and began the process with an attorney to continue.
With some luck (for the buyer) the buyer went to my sister-in-law's attorney. The attorney recognized the property but did not recognize the seller. So the attorney called my sister-in-law who said she had no sale in process. She was shocked. She sent her aunt over to the property to check it out and her aunt of course reported that the keys she had did not work and the signs had been changed.
So my sister-in-law came back to the DR went to her lawyer's office and met with the buyer. Unfortunately for the buyer they had to explain to him what had happened. The attorney then began trying to contact the seller to "continue the deal" but of course by now the seller is nowhere to be found, phone disconnected, etc. 1/3 of the money for the buyer gone and no recovery.
It is only lucky for the buyer that he went to the right attorney. If he went anywhere else he might have ended up losing more money before finding out he was a victim of this scam.
Through all of this, I feel bad for the buyer and others who are scammed, but I continue to think that we all have to do a better job of protecting ourselves. I just can't imagine a situation where I would hand over money to buy a property before I verified the title to the property. I wouldn't even buy a car before I verified the title, let alone a house.
A few years ago my sister-in-law got a job for a J&J research facility in Puerto Rico. So she put her home in Santo Domingo on the market and left for Puerto Rico.
At some point someone broke the locks on the home and changed them with locks that this person had the key for. This person took down the for sale signs and put up their own. This person got a buyer one day. The buyer, whom my sister-in-law did meet, thought everything was good just because the person who responded to the calls and showed the house had the keys.
But the seller of course did not have a title and promised the buyer the title would come after the purchase. The buyer believed this and continued with the deal. After all the seller did have the keys so what could be wrong. So the buyer paid 1/3 of the sale price to the seller as a deposit and began the process with an attorney to continue.
With some luck (for the buyer) the buyer went to my sister-in-law's attorney. The attorney recognized the property but did not recognize the seller. So the attorney called my sister-in-law who said she had no sale in process. She was shocked. She sent her aunt over to the property to check it out and her aunt of course reported that the keys she had did not work and the signs had been changed.
So my sister-in-law came back to the DR went to her lawyer's office and met with the buyer. Unfortunately for the buyer they had to explain to him what had happened. The attorney then began trying to contact the seller to "continue the deal" but of course by now the seller is nowhere to be found, phone disconnected, etc. 1/3 of the money for the buyer gone and no recovery.
It is only lucky for the buyer that he went to the right attorney. If he went anywhere else he might have ended up losing more money before finding out he was a victim of this scam.
Through all of this, I feel bad for the buyer and others who are scammed, but I continue to think that we all have to do a better job of protecting ourselves. I just can't imagine a situation where I would hand over money to buy a property before I verified the title to the property. I wouldn't even buy a car before I verified the title, let alone a house.
