Criminals Steal House Thanks To Hacked Email

mask.of.sanity writes with this quote from ZDNet: "An international cybercrime investigation is underway into a sophisticated scam network that used email and fax to sell an Australian man's AU$500,000 property without his knowledge. The man was overseas when the Nigerian-based scammers stole his credentials and amazingly sold two houses through his real estate agent. He rushed home and prevented the sale of his second home from being finalized. Australian Federal Police and overseas law enforcement agencies will investigate the complex scam, which is considered the first of its kind in Australia. It is alleged scammers had stolen the man's email account and personal property documents to sell the houses and funnel cash into Chinese bank accounts. Investigating agencies admit the scammers hoodwinked both the selling agents and the government, and said they had enough information to satisfy regulatory requirements. The police did not rule out if the scammers had links to the man."

Comments

Re:This is a non-story.

[euyis]

Because it's insanely complex and stealthy?

this is ridiculous

[fadethepolice]

The fact that property of this value can be transferred without the owner's knowledge and he has to go to the australian government in the hopes of recovering full value for the home is shameful. You would think that a court of law would need to be consulted and signatures would have to be issued and compared, at least through the mail.

Re:this is ridiculous

[ShakaUVM]

>>You would think that a court of law would need to be consulted and signatures would have to be issued and compared, at least through the mail.

Theoretically that is what notaries and escrow is all about. Whatever notary signed off on this should lose their license. If it wasn't notarized, then the escrow company for approving a sale without notarized documents. I'm also kind of surprised the real estate agent never tried to call the guy, even if he was overseas.

Re:this is ridiculous

[rtb61]

There is far more to it than email, "It is alleged scammers had stolen Mildenhall's email account and personal and property documents". There had to direct proximate contact, they obtained personal and property documents. The email angle seems to be more of a beat up by ZDnet rather than being of any real significance.

Investor generally keep property titles in a private safe or a bank safety deposit box but, he didn't notice them gone.

Hmm, strange had investments house and his agent was not renting them and the owner didn't notice the missing rent income if the agent was renting them. The whole thing stinks, from the owner, to the agent and beyond. It will be interesting to see how the case pans out over the next few months.

Re:this is ridiculous

[AK Marc]

Do you own land? I do. I have multiple pieces of land in three states. I have no title to anything. I have document showing the sale from the previous owner to me and a document from a title insurance company. That should be sufficient. There isn't a paper title like a car. It's not like the land moves. The titles are kept by the state. The papers indicating my ownership are kept in my home and not in a safe of any kind. If someone wished, they could get them. But, under US law, this type of fraud would leave the buyers with nothing and I'd still be the undisputed owner. If I wasn't the one to sign that I sold it, it wasn't sold. Period. The rules are evidently different in Australia, though.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Cowpat]

you owe money to the government, if you don't pay it, they take your stuff and sell it to pay your debt.

Don't pay any of your other taxes and you'll find your assets being sold, do you not 'own' those either?

How about when you don't pay your private debts; one of your creditors gets you made bankrupt and your stuff gets liquidated? did you not own any of that either?

If you don't pay your debts, your assets get sold to pay them. The only thing special in regard to the government there is that they can create the debts for you to pay (i.e. taxes).

Re:this is ridiculous

[ScrewMaster]

The only thing special in regard to the government there is that they can create the debts for you to pay (i.e. taxes).

Yes, and that's the key difference! You pretty much shot the rest of your argument down by pointing this out. By having the ability to levy taxes, and the power to force the sale of property to recover those taxes, the government ultimately has effective ownership of your "property". Ownership is a matter of control, and if you don't control something you really don't own it.

I don't know if you've ever been in the position of nearly losing your home to that, but it's a frightening process, and it's then that you realize how little you matter, how little they care, how little control you actually have.

How we managed to let this state of affairs become law is beyond me, but we did.

Re:this is ridiculous

[ScrewMaster]

A government without the ability to levy taxes and the power to force the sale of property to recover those taxes would be entirely inneffectual.

I suppose what I'm complaining about is the way such sales are handled, at least in my experience.

It almost happened to my father. He owned his home: paid off his thirty year mortgage on time and in full. But he became ill one year, and racked up some substantial medical bills, and couldn't pay all of his property tax. He was so sick at the time that he didn't even know that. Fortunately, I had financial power-of-attorney and was going through his records, and discovered (only a couple of days in advance) that his house was scheduled to be sold (the county provided no notice, naturally, I was just lucky enough to figure it out on my own.)

So on the morning of the yearly tax sale, I went to the county seat and attempted to speak with one of the city attorneys about the matter. She was about the coldest human being I've ever encountered, and told me literally, "pay up or lose the house, and don't bother me again." "Civil servant" my ass, and all I wanted was a week 'til some receivables came in. I had brought letters from his physicians documenting his medical condition, but this woman wouldn't even look at them, eventually ordered me out of her office because she had "more important matters to attend to."

So, I went downstairs to the cashier, and found a line of people that stretched down the hall, most of whom were in line to buy my father's house for the price of six month's property taxes. I elbowed my way to the head of the line and handed the cashier a certified check for the remaining balance (flattening my checking account in the process.) I heard a collective groan behind me, as a couple dozen vultures turned around and left because I'd beaten them to it.

A few years before that, he'd had that audacity to ask the county to reappraise his home because he felt they'd valued it too high (and, of course, his taxes were based upon that valuation.) The assessor came out and assessed it about $20,000 higher and told him, "that'll teach you."

Frankly, I'd much rather deal with the Internal Revenue Service than any lower-level taxing body. Yes, the IRS takes a lot of deserved heat, but they do have rules and they follow them, and they'd rather get the cash, even if they don't get it right away. Matter of fact, Dad ended up owing them some money as well, but when I sent them medical documentation and explained the situation, they were willing to write it all off.

When it comes to real estate taxes, don't get behind because you'll likely lose a whole lot more. The problem is likely to get worse, as our local governments start to have more and more financial problems, and start squeezing people even more than they already do.

Re:So what's the deal here.

[dark grep]

AFAIK under Australian Law, the people who bought the first house get to keep it. Assuming they are just innocent and genuine buyers. There is a government fund that is used to compensate the victim of the theft in these sort of cases, though the value will be independently assessed and the owner paid on the basis of that assessment, not what the current owners paid the scammers.

That's nothing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the US criminals stole not the House, but the whole Executive Branch thanks to hacked voting machines! (allegedly)

Re:So what's the deal here.

[AK Marc]

That's good to know because US law is clear in that the first owner would regain (because he never lost) ownership and the people who paid for it would have lost all their money and their recourse would be to find and sue the scammers. At least in Australia it sounds like there's a chance of recovering something in international fraud cases. The FBI won't even investigate international fraud if they can get out of it and will lie to you to prevent you pushing hard enough to make it an official case. And there's not much you can do to recover the money, even if you identify the person in question, if they live abroad.

buyer should lose

[yyxx]

The owner can't protect himself against fraudulent sales because he doesn't know a transaction is taking place. The buyer, on the other hand, knows that a transaction is taking place and that there is a certain risk that it's fraudulent. The buyer has all the power and information necessary to make sure it's not a fraudulent transaction and to insure against it. That's why the buyer should lose the house and it should go back to its original owner. The buyer should have title insurance (either privately purchased or through the state).

If you don't place the responsibility on the buyer, no party who knows about the transaction has any interest in preventing fraud: the real estate agent gets his cut, the buyer gets a cheap house, and the con men get their money. In that situation, they can all ignore signs of fraud to the maximum degree that they can plausibly get away with.

Some insight into conveyancing:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some insight from a UK perspective anyway. I work for a fairly large firm of solicitors in the UK who specialize in property/real estate. Here's a few worrying bits of information:

We are required to have ID on the file by law, we are not required to check it in any way whatsoever.

If the vendor/purchaser is long distance from our offices we will accept emailed/faxed copies of all paperwork (INCLUDING ID) within certain easily restrictions such as certified copies, see next point.

We will create a certified copy of ID from anyone that walks in from the street which is basically a legal way of saying we've had sight of the original. If someone was worried about sending their passport to us by post they could get a copy and take it to a local firm of solicitors/lawyers/attorneys and have them stamp it, we would then accept that by fax or email as if it were the original document. This process is usually done by whoever the office assistant/intern happens to be and they will certainly not know how to check the document to make sure it is an original. In my experience they tend to be more worried about whether or not they will be able to make the photocopier work.

We are never required to speak to our client by phone or in person, some simply prefer to do business by email for whatever reason. (sometimes language/accent barriers - communicating via google translate is an experience for sure)

We are not required to check signatures beyond a casual glance to make sure they look similar to the one shown on the ID and this is usually not done. If the document is signed that's good enough for most of the solicitors I've worked for.

Posting ac for obvious reasons.

Re:So what's the deal here.

[Fnkmaster]

Actually, in the US the unknowing buyers would be compensated by their title insurance company and the seller would get his house back. This is exactly why we have title insurance on real estate transactions.