Posts tagged real estate fraud
Real Estate Wire Fraud Hiding in Plain Sight

Julian Altman stole a Stradivarius violin and "hid" it in plain sight as he performed on it for nearly 50 years. Fraud in real estate transactions also has moved out of the shadows and into plain view as fraudsters impersonate transaction parties.

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Fraud and Forgery: From Vintage Violins to Today’s Real Estate Transaction

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I received an e-mail purporting to be from a real estate paralegal at a law firm with which I had been working on a real estate transaction several months before. The e-mail included a link, which appeared to be a legitimate link from a well-known electronic signature processor, asking me to securely download a document for electronic signature. This particular e-mail made me suspicious because I had no open real estate transactions with the law firm that sent me the link. 

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When it Looks Like a Strad but Isn’t: Protecting Yourself from Wire Fraud in Your Real Estate Transaction

Fine violins do not have serial numbers, but they do typically have a label inside identifying the maker and frequently the year and location where the violin was made. Many violin makers, or luthiers[i] as they are known, like to copy well-known instruments, sometimes even down to the label inside the instrument, and the most famous violin maker, Antonio Stradivari, is also the most frequently copied.

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