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My local appraisal district has a free search that shows you the ownership of any address in the district. Might be good to check your local district to make sure your title was not changed. If there's nothing new on your credit reports, you should be ok.... May be as simple as someone used your address on an online form to get access to a web site, and the web site is sharing this data for comarketing.

If you live in Tarrant County (For worth area), the appraisal district web site is https://www.tad.org/

philip964 wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:51 am

philip964 wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:43 am

OneGun wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:10 pm You might want to check if there is another mortgage on your home. If read about it before. Someone takes out a loan on your house and you get the lien.

This is what I was worried about.

Thanks everyones help. I will order this free credit report.

Ok so I went to my credit reports, reviewed all three nothing out of the ordinary, except a few years back somebody in Tallahassee Florida took out a credit card in my name and bought something expensive at Walmart. The credit card company figured it out pretty quickly it was not me and cancelled the card. But the address they used was still on my file. So I disputed it. It also reminded me not to get a store credit card ever.

So how about this taking out a loan on my house and a potential lien on my house? Would I have to pay for a title search? Or do I just wait for the first mortgage payment to arrive? Are banks not smarter than this? So who got the proceeds from the loan?

Wouldn't the credit report show a loan on your house?

The Annoyed Man wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:05 am

rotor wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:05 pm Get a free credit report

You're entitled to one free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies. Order online from annualcreditreport.com, the only authorized website for free credit reports, or call 1-877-322-8228. Don't go to one of the pay sites to get the report.

I had someone convince my credit card company (by phone!) to issue another credit card to them at a California address. They changed my email and mailing address. They convinced the company to do this all by calling in on the phone. Can you believe? My calls to credit card company now require a password. I was alerted by text message of a change. Please note that even though I went to my local police, filed a report that NOTHING was done and they don't care. They had the address where the credit card was going to be sent to and name of the person and could have notified the California police but nothing was done. I am still furious about their inaction. You can get a free credit report from all 3 companies every 12 months.

This happened to me a few years ago, to the tune of $48,000 ... and it was the same thing. I had the name and address of the perp, and neither my local police, or the police in New Orleans (where the perp lived) would do anything about it. The reasoning was that $48,000 just wasn’t enough money to justify the effort to arrest her.

That’s why identity theft is so common. There’s almost zero risk of jail, even if you’re caught red-handed.

TAM, I found out from my encounter that one can password a phone in to a credit card company, just like you do on the internet. Since phone numbers can be spoofed so easily now you can't depend on calling from your home number. Set up a call in pin or password with your card company before they allow access to any info. I was actually hacked by a call in. Now I have them pass-worded.

rotor wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:10 pm

The Annoyed Man wrote: Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:05 am

rotor wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:05 pm Get a free credit report

You're entitled to one free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies. Order online from annualcreditreport.com, the only authorized website for free credit reports, or call 1-877-322-8228. Don't go to one of the pay sites to get the report.

I had someone convince my credit card company (by phone!) to issue another credit card to them at a California address. They changed my email and mailing address. They convinced the company to do this all by calling in on the phone. Can you believe? My calls to credit card company now require a password. I was alerted by text message of a change. Please note that even though I went to my local police, filed a report that NOTHING was done and they don't care. They had the address where the credit card was going to be sent to and name of the person and could have notified the California police but nothing was done. I am still furious about their inaction. You can get a free credit report from all 3 companies every 12 months.

This happened to me a few years ago, to the tune of $48,000 ... and it was the same thing. I had the name and address of the perp, and neither my local police, or the police in New Orleans (where the perp lived) would do anything about it. The reasoning was that $48,000 just wasn’t enough money to justify the effort to arrest her.

That’s why identity theft is so common. There’s almost zero risk of jail, even if you’re caught red-handed.

TAM, I found out from my encounter that one can password a phone in to a credit card company, just like you do on the internet. Since phone numbers can be spoofed so easily now you can't depend on calling from your home number. Set up a call in pin or password with your card company before they allow access to any info. I was actually hacked by a call in. Now I have them pass-worded.

Yeah, I’ve already got all that stuff locked down since I had the trouble. That was back in 2002 or ‘03.

philip964 wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:58 pm I have recently started receiving in the mail, lots of welcoming to the neighborhood letters from various companies like banks, Home Depot, stores, etc. etc.

They are all addressed to someone I do not know with my home address.

It is as if I had sold my home and someone new had moved in. I still get my mail as normal.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Is this a weird form of identity theft?

Has someone stolen my home down at the courthouse?

Should I contact someone? Who?

I have received maybe 40 pieces of mail from lots of businesses so far, all with in the last two weeks.

Your county clerk may has a website where you can verify whose name is on the deed. Short of that, they can surely show you in person.

Problem solved with trip to courthouse.

Could have solved it by going on line here in Houston.

The woman whose mail I was getting lives at sort of a similar legal description.

Apparently the algorithm that these “welcome package” people use, grabs the legal descriptions from new deeds and then tries to convert it to an address.

We have the same block number, and a similar subdivision name. So no theft of my property or new lien.

Problem solved. Thanks for all the good advice.

WOW! LOL!! Im very glad it workes out for you and was just something silly!

Glad that ended well.

I’m still getting her mail. One today.

The woman’s middle name was Nga. That was also a puzzle to me.

I found out it’s pronounced Nee.

So I went to all the credit agencies and checked that all out. I got one bogus address removed.

What I read on line was very scary. Apparently vacant houses are the most at risk. Also it’s a big problem for any house in Canada.

Again thanks!!

OneGun wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:10 pm You might want to check if there is another mortgage on your home. If read about it before. Someone takes out a loan on your house and you get the lien.

Good idea. If you live in an urban county, chances are the county deed records are online. If not, the books are publicly accessible at the county clerk's office. If I were you, I'd try that first.

A legitimate, professional lender would not lend money on a house without a mortgagee's title policy. To get that, the borrower would have had to forge a deed frim you (or whoever holds legitimate title to your house). Most likely, that forgery would end up being a federal crime. It would certainly be a state one.

Now some grifter may have convinced some mark to "invest" by advancing money on your house. That would be a crime, too, but of a different sort. Probably no forged deed in that case. So instead of searching for a deed with you as grantor, you'd have to search for instruments affectung your property. To identify your property, use the description in your deed (probably lot, block, and subdivision), not your street address,

Good luck.

Speaking of grifters, a few years back, a guy I know, loaned a recent friend some real money, for an emergency he was having at the time. The guy was no dummy, he took security for the loan in the form of a deed of trust on a vacant valuable piece of property his recent friend owned in California.

The recent friend disappeared, and so he foreclosed on the land in California. He then contacted a real estate agent in CA and put the property up for sale.

He then was sued in CA civil court by the man who owned the land before the recent friend. The recent friend you see never bought the land he simply forged the real owners name on the title convinced a notary to stamp it and filed it with the court house.

So they guy I know not only lost all the money he loaned his recent friend, he also had to defend himself in court, pay the other man's attorney fees and pay any damages the court ordered. Also drug in was the notary and the fancy hotel the notary worked at. The recent friend you see, lived at fancy hotels, didn't have a drivers license, payed in cash and rarely signed his name. He would endorse checks "signature guaranteed".

I don't know if the original land owner wanted the land back at all, he may have just wanted money. Not sure how it all ended.

But I do know, the grifter, wasn't charged with a crime. He seemed to be a witness in the lawsuit rather than a party, as I don't think he had any of the money left and besides he was hard to find.