The Many Ways that Scammers Can Mess with Your Bank, Financial Accounts, and Even Your Home Ownership
Once scammers have your personal identity, there are all kinds of ways they can mess with your bank, other financial accounts, even ownership of your home, as I’ve discovered in researching I Was Scammed. It’s a follow-up to my book The Big Con, that was just published by American Leadership Books and will be a documentary out these year.
These bank or finance fraud schemes include the following:
· The scammers may open a bank account using your name and write bad checks.
· The scammers may use your name or bank account number to create and cash counterfeit checks.
· The scammers may create a clone of your debit or ATM card and then use that to make electronic withdrawals in your name, until all your money is gone.
· The scammers may use your personal information to take out a loan, and you may not realize this until you start getting requests to repay it.
· The scammers can engage in mortgage fraud by taking out a home equity line or credit or second mortgage in your name and then take the money.
· The scammers can engage in home title fraud by gaining possession of the title to your property. They can do this if they have enough identifying information about you enabling them to transfer the ownership of your property title to themselves. Then, they can use your home equity to take out loans or lines of credit in your name or gain access to the loans and credit you already have. They could even sell your house from under you.
I’ll talk about what you can do to prevent identity theft and avoid getting scammed in future articles.
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The author is internationally published author and film producer, Gini Graham Scott, PhD, who has published over 200 books, 50 for traditional publishers and 150 for her own company Changemakers Publishing, specializing in books on self-help, popular business, and social issues. She is the author of The Big Con: Scams Targeting Writers, the Victims, and How to Avoid Becoming a Victim, and she is working on a new book on different types of scams: I Was Scammed. Other recent books include: What Type of Dog Are You? and The New American Middle Ages, published by Waterside Productions. She has written and executive produced 14 feature films and documentaries, featured on the www.changemakersproductionsfilms.com website. She also writes books and scripts for clients. Her website for writing is at www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com.
For more information or to set up an interview, contact:
Karen Andrews
Executive Assistant to Gini Graham Scott
Changemakers Publishing and Writing
Lafayette, CA 94549 . (925) 385–0608