Cindy Fazio

Hello. I hope everyone is healthy, and I hope your businesses are continuing to survive. I want to talk about fraud.

First, the housing market. I continue to be amazed at the vibrancy. Is this a boom to be followed by a bust? We know bad guys linger around the edges of both. We see interest rates driving the re-fi markets, rising numbers of forbearances said to be in place, the shrinking inventory, including in the rental market, and the unemployment rates. Add to this uncertainty about whether unemployment benefits will continue to receive a federal government boost and you have yourself a real puzzle.

Is the economic pinch going to be in the commercial real estate space or residential or both? Early on in the pandemic I was talking with someone and they told me that in their neighborhood a couple of those “We want to buy your house!” signs went up. Shortly thereafter, I noticed one near our office, saying “We pay market prices for houses.” These do not appear to be professional signs with business names and numbers and logos. These signs concern me about the various kinds of mortgage fraud like that found in these pending criminal cases:

Forgery and Attempted Theft 1 for trying to steal deceased aunt’s home by forging a quit claim deed; X and Y Bad Guys convinced victims they could get them out of their mortgage in exchange for payments - victim paid $28,000; scammer posed as a homeowner and “sold” a house to an investor; wire fraud where the buyers were deceived into wiring closing funds into a fraudulent escrow account; the list goes on.

Second, money transmission. These terrible times are affecting many parts of the world. Anyone sending money to family out of the country risk fraud on the front end, if they use an unlicensed online scammer sender, or on the back end of transmission when the intended recipient cannot receive the money. Then there is the identity-fraud scam when your “niece” sends an email urgently needing money with you purchasing a prepaid gift card and giving out the card information. Or the phishing scammer who wants to you to “update” your information but then of course you upload some horrible malware. Your business systems are subject to phishing attacks and ransomware attacks.

Enough! We all have enough to worry about! Yet we still have to worry about fraud. Against our business, and against our personal lives. Fraud is never good, but now it seems particularly mean. Please help us fight fraud. Thank you.

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Summer 2020 Division of Consumer Services Newsletter
Contact us at: dcs@dfi.wa.gov or (360) 902-8703