May 16, 2025 • 50 mins
Just the News No Noise on Real America's Voice
Segment A: A NEW THREAT TO YOUR TITLE
Segment B: FORMER TITLE FRAUD THIEF EXPLAINS HOW HE DID IT
Segment C: FORMER FBI AGENT ON HOW LAW ENFORCEMENT DEALS WITH TITLE FRAUD
Segment D: A VICTIM OF TITLE CRIME SHARES HER STORY
Segment E: WHY YOU NEED TITLE FRAUD PROTECTION
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Good eating America, and welcome to this special edition of
Jess and Who's No Noise. I'm your host, John Solomon
reporting Kids Always from Washington, d C. My co host
Amana Head, Well, she is out in the field covering
President Trump and the White House inside the poultice. So
you're gonna fly solo with me. But we've got a
lot to dive into. I promised you at the beginning
year we'd spend a lot of time educating you on
(00:41):
what I believe is one of the most devastating and
silent crimes in America. The reason it's silent is by
the time you know you're a victim, you may already
beat hundreds of thousands of dollars upside down in debt
and you may not even own your home.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's exactly right. You know what this is.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's called title fraud. It's a crime the FBI calls
house deealing. If you own a home, you could already
be at risk because the cybercrimes, cyber criminals carrying this out,
they want your most valuable asset, not your gold, not
your crypto coins, not your checkbook, They want the equity
in your home. Now it's an amazing fact, total US
(01:16):
home equity now stands at thirty two trillion dollars, and
that makes it highly vulnerable to theft without proper protection.
And it just takes one forged document file that your
local recorder's office, who, by the way, can't do anything
about it, and suddenly someone else owns your home on paper.
Imagine finding out your home is no longer in your
name and scammers that have taken out loans, drained your
equity and left you to deal with that fallout, that mess.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It's only it's not only home owners too.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
If you're looking to buy your own property land, it
could turn out you are buying it from someone who
doesn't even own it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's going on right now.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Title pirates sending emails out asking potential buyers to buy land.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
That they don't even know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
County recorders across America have also begun to sound the
alarm as the number of victimizing homeowners has been surging.
In Portage County, OHI, I'll get a load of this.
Just a few weeks ago, the county recorder express concern
that most homeowners don't know how vulnerable they are.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
She described the.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
End goal of home title thieves simply this way, they
just really want cash. They're trying to get cash off
your equity in your home. That is why we add
Justin News have been partnering throughout this year with Home
Titled Lock because they offer an exclusive million dollar Triple
Locked protection giving you twenty four to seven monitoring of
your homes title urgent alerts if there's any ever any
(02:32):
change on the paperwork, and if title fraud should ever
cure God forbid, their US based festoration team will spend
up to one million dollars to fix the fraud and
restore your title. Let's say, really good deal. We'll talk
more about that throughout the show tonight. This evening, we're
going to hear from former FBI agents, an Emmy Award
winning reporter and consumer advocate, as well as a former title.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Thief who served thirteen years in prison for this heinous crime.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
We also hear from a real victim of title thief.
That's really important too. I want you to from the
front lines what it feels like when you go through
that whrror. So stay with us throughout the hour. By
the end of this hour, you're going to be a
lot better informed and know a little bit more about
how to protect your home and your equity before it's
too late. Now to get us started on this very
busy night, We've got a great guess. He's an Emmy
and multi award winning news anchor and investigative reporter.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Guy close to my heart.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
He's recently been spending a lot of time researching this
growing crime of home title theft. So you're the consumer,
you're the homeowner, could be better protect Joining us right now,
my good friend John Summer, John, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
John, So great to be with you as always. And yeah,
this is a really important subject and your lead into
this really pretty much nailed it. This is a crime
that is growing in leaps and bounds. You use the
term titled pirates, which I just love. You know, it's
(03:55):
house stealing or deep theft, but title pirates pretty much
describes it because it's such a stealth crime that most
people don't know that they got hit and tell us
way too late.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah it is, and by that time you have a
lot of digging out to do.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's months.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I talked to someone last week almost eighteen months before
they could get right, and they didn't have hometown of
lock and so they had to go through the process
of hiring a lawyer and going to court. It's really
a painful process, and we want to make sure people
avoid that.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Now, I want to start with something that's the motive.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
So all right, we're going to meet someone who did
this for a time and went to prison for at
Matt Cox. But at the end of the day, you know,
people think, well, I got my cash in the bank,
I got to cover my ATM pin when I go
put my PIN number in to get some kind of
cash out of the bank. But the biggest, most lucrative
thing we own is our home. It is the prize
or prizes for a fraud sturb And it seems like
(04:50):
the cyber criminals are getting more and more anxious to
tap that very big asset you own in your portfolio.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, most people, and especially right now the stark market
kind of going back and forth, and people are concerned
about their investments and their four oh one care or whatever,
or maybe gold or bitcoin. But most people don't realize
John that their biggest investment almost always is going to
be in their home and their property, and they don't
(05:18):
understand just how vulnerable they are to having that property
stolen and John, it isn't like they're stealing the structure
of the home or whatever. They steal the deed or
the titles of the property. And they can do this
very easily online right now and with artificial intelligence, and
you can get a notary stamp. It's so easy to do,
(05:41):
and that once you have that property in your name,
then you can leverage it. Sometimes they'll sell the property,
but more than likely they're going to take out loans
or multiple loans. And you'll talk to Matt Cox, he
was a past master at doing this. But it can
be done by any anybody anywhere in the world, and
(06:02):
there are criminal enterprises all around the world. I can
find out anything about you or anybody any of your
listeners right now and viewers and be able to take
that title of that property. And it doesn't have to
have a structure on it. It could be open land.
Here on the central coast of California. Our biggest problem,
because I deal with the local District Attorney's office, is
(06:26):
stealing just open land and because people aren't watching out
for it, you know, they don't pay attention to it,
or the cabin in the woods, or maybe you have
an Airbnb.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
It's all up for grounds.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, it is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You may mentioned something I think is really at the
heart of why this crime has exploded, and that is
our digital footprint is everybody, everywhere, Everything about us is
out and open. That's the consequence of the Internet era,
of the digital age, social media age. So it doesn't
take long for somebody to go find one of those
deeds that are online ford your signature because they found
(07:01):
it somewhere else, and then submit it. And there's a
real weak spot in this security system because it turns
out the county recorder, the person who get the they
have no power to say that's not you or stop.
You're really kind of vulnerable because the best person who
can protect you has no legal power to stop the transaction.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Right, You're absolutely right, John, Because if all the paperwork
looks paperwork looks proper, you know, if everything looks like
it's accurate and there's a notary stamp on it and
so on, they can't ask you if it might be fraudulent.
They have to pass it, and they do, and there's
no way to stop it from happening. And nowadays, you know,
(07:42):
it can even happen online. You don't even have to
go down to the county clerk's office.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, it's just so easy for the for the criminal
and for us unless you're checking every day. Really, there's
only is it, like you can send a letter saying, hey,
county recorder, don't transfer my home to anyone unless I
tell you you have to check every day to see
if someone's doing it, and no one has time. But
we're busy.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Nobody, nobody's going to do that, John, I mean, and
it's the only way, right. You just can't have time
to do it. You have to have some sort of
a system to be able to monitor that title or
that deed to your property. And you know, it's just
simply not practical for you to be able to go
down to the clerk's office. And even if you did,
the minute that you leave, somebody could steal it. It
(08:25):
can happen that fast, and.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It does just crazy. It's really mind numbing.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
The ingenuity and entrepreneurialism of these criminals is pretty impressive,
but it comes at our expense. I want to turn
to some real life examples because they're piling up. Every
time I do a clip switch, a clip search, or
a Google search, I see another case down I think
it was in Lehigh Valley in Florida, right in the
(08:52):
Tampa area. There was a woman she ended up trying
to grab two houses. I think she ultimately got convicted
by a jury. But her mentality was finders keepers. If
I get it, it was out of luck.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
That's I know that case.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And yeah, she she would just drive around, you know,
the area and looked for properties that maybe somebody wasn't
living in even though they you know, they they actually
occupied the home, but they might have another home someplace house,
and so they're not there watching over it.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
One of the ones that was most.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Interesting in the Tampa Bay area as a couple there,
Larry and dream of Bill be and they were actually
they bought a home and they were doing a lot
of construction on it, so they weren't living in the
property at that particular point. As they were doing all
the renovation and so on. Somebody went in they noticed
(09:45):
that no one was there occupying it the whole time,
and they stole the deed to the property and sold
it to somebody else without the Bilbies even knowing it,
and they had to go through the court system. John,
this is the biggest problem because you have to hire
an attorney and then you have to go through the
court system, and we know how nasty that can be sometimes,
(10:10):
and it might take years to be able to reclaim
what is actually your rightful property and your deed. And
the only way to prevent that is to be able
to have some sort of a system to be able
to protect you, just like you would with a credit card,
or maybe you have a ring camera on your home
so you can see who's coming and going and so on.
(10:30):
But as we said before, for most people, this is
their biggest asset, and most people don't even think about
protecting it.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, the last time we talked about our titles probably
when we bought the house and then we just move on.
We don't think about it, but there's about it every day. Yeah,
it's crazy. You mentioned security cameras, and I've seen a
couple of recent stories where the first time a homeowners,
maybe it was a vacation home if I've remember correctly,
the first time they realized they were troubles.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Even before they got the notice of making there were.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Strange people walking around their property like they owned it.
That's literally what could happen here, right? The people who
buying it might not even know that they've been duped.
So you've got the buyer and the person who owns
the home both being victimized. The nature of these criminals
and how crafted they are is kind of jaw dropping.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And that's just it, because the only victims aren't just
the people that own the property. It's the people that
have been duped into buying the property because they think
that it's free and clear. And now you bought a
house and then all of a sudden you find out
that that was not the rightful owner that you bought
it from in the first place. And then there's the banks,
the loan companies and all of these entities as well.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
That everybody is a victim. It's not just the owner
of the property.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, no doubt. Now you said the key.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And then this is exactly so with the cops and
the prosecutors, the lawyers have all told us is to
have some form of a system that's constantly monitoring your title,
alerts you and jumps into action. You've been doing great
consumer reporting for decades, you know how important is to
protect consumers. You've made lots of great journalism to make
us smarter as consumers tell us a little bit title lock.
(12:10):
What does it do? How does it give us that
peace of mind? What is it doing day in and
day out that I don't have to worry about doing that?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Well, you mentioned a company, home title Lock, and they
have a website, home title lock dot com.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Go on there.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I mean, I encourage your followers to do their own
due diligence and just go on the side see the
stories that are on there. Understand that everybody that owns
a piece of property is vulnerable. And the only way
that you're going to really secure that deed or that
title to the property is to be able to have
(12:46):
a system that number one monitors the property, which you
can't practically do. Number two alerts you if there's something
fishy going on and home title Lock, Hey, I got
a great story, John. My wife and I just put
our home up for sale and last week I got
(13:10):
an alert because I'm a member of Home title Lock,
and I what the heck is this?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
You know, because our home is on the market.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, what they alerted me to is that the property
was put on the MLS at the multiple listing service.
Now that's not somebody stealing the property, but it's home
title lock, alerting me to something that is going on
with my property, my home. I was grateful for that
because I didn't even think that they did this as
(13:38):
part of the service. So they monitor, they alert, and
then if for some reason that title gets transferred to
somebody else, they will work with you to restore that
title back to your proper name and avoid having to
go through the court system hiring an attorney, which can
(13:58):
be extremely defensive. They will give you up to a
million dollars worth of service to be able to put
that title back into your rightful dame. It's an incredible company.
They are the pioneers. They invented this system of monitoring,
and I just encourage everyone to go onto the website
and take a look at it and educate yourself to
(14:20):
how big of a problem this is.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
They really are pioneers.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
One last question before we head out to the break, John,
You've been watching this for some time. Every prosecutor I've
talked to, every FBI, and I talked to every cop
I talked to, said this is a trend line that's
been going up. Any doubt in your mind, it's just
going to get more and more popular for the criminals to.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Do, so easy to do, John, And in fact, you're
going to talk to Art Fitzenmeier, who was a retired
FBI agent. He'll toudg you tell you about this, as
well as Matthew Cox, who spent some time in the
Big House because it was so easy to do. And
then I think you're also going to have a victim
of this as well, so your viewer will have a
(15:01):
the length and breadth of what this crime is. It
is stealth, it's huge and everybody should be aware of it.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. I agree.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
It's something I didn't even know existed a few years ago,
but it is becoming more one of us did. Yeah,
it's so remarkable down Summer. You do such amazing work.
You're a great journalist. Great opportunity to have you on
the top of the show today. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Thanks so much, John, really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I always enjoyed talking to a great reporter like you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
All right, folks, after the break, we're going to get
an interview with a man who used to commit this
crime to explain how he did it and how you
can protet yourself and by the way, how easy it
is to victimize people. But While we're in the break,
I want you to do me a favorite. Go to
home title lock dot com and use our promo code
jt N thirty.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Here's what You're going to get a free look at your.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Title history reports so you can see if your title
is still in your name or if someone's ready to
be unplaying it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And when you sign up, you also.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Receive a free extended thirty day trial, a million dollar
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to seven modering of your home titles alerks if anything
at all changes to your title and if fraud should
help and got forbid. The US based experts at home
beedle locked will spend up to a million bucks it
takes to fraud and restore your title at no extra
cost to you.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Don't wait. Get peace of mind with a free.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Title history report in thirty days at pre protection right
now at home title lock dot com. It's homebedlelock dot
com promo code jtnthon.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
We'll be right, Matthew.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Welcome back to America to this special justin News report.
We are taking a deep dive into the crime of
title theft and joining us to discuss more about that
is someone.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Who used to commit this crime.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
He's now reformed, and he's now leading all of us
to a better understanding how it's done.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Our good friend, Matthew Cox, Matthew, welcome back.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
All right.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I think spent about thirteen years in prison. You did
about fifty five million dollars of this sort of home
title theft. Thought it was pretty easy for you, right
to pull this off. Most people were pretty unsuspecting.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Right, Oh, absolutely, it's extremely easy crime to commit.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, and you're gone by the time someone like me
finds out my house has been stolen from me, My
paperwork has been changed, my equity's gone. You're in some
other counties, some other country by the time, right.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yeah, By the time by the time the homeowner is notified,
I've already cleared the bank accounts and I'm in another state,
or like you said, maybe I'm on vacation in another country,
probably onto my next victim.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. That's the amazing thing about it.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
The gap from the time a victim knows that they've
been victimized is so long that the bad guys are
way down the road. I want to talk a little
bit about the reasons why this has grown so much,
particularly in the last decade. I guess the digital era
brings us a lot of conveniences, but it also brings
those conveniences to cyber thieves. All of our records are
(17:57):
online now, so it's just easier to assume some one's identity, right.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Yes, much easier now than when I was doing it
twenty years ago. And access to public records, not not
only people's personal information, but public records is much more
accessible now because now I can I can go sit
in my local coffee shop and use their WiFi, and
I can go online and search titles. Whereas twenty years ago,
(18:25):
I had to physically go downtown to public records, I
had to go into the building. I had to go
into the office and search those records. You know in person,
you're on video camera. I mean, that's those are all
vulnerable situations. But now I can. I can order of
Vanela latte and search your search the records and create
(18:46):
a warranty, deed or whatever documents I need to create
to steal a home or transfer the title, and I
can do it right in the coffee shop.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's pretty amazing, I just said, thinking out of how
easy it isn't convenient, and.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
It really does scare you.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I want to go through some of the misconceptions that
people have because a lot of people think, well, I
don't have this problem. I bought title insurance when I
bought my house. Title insurance doesn't protect you the moment
that the title has been transferred to you, right.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Right, So it title insurance covers you up to the
moment you purchase your house. All title insurance is saying is, hey,
there are no leans on your home other than maybe
the mortgage that you're taking out from your bank. That
you have a clean lean. So let's say two days later,
I can go downtown and I can file a transfer.
(19:36):
I could transfer your title, you know, create a new title,
or I could satisfy the mortgage on your house. There's
a number of things I can do. And unless you're
your titles being monitored, you're not notified of those things.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
So yeah, so you're you're and just like you said,
which from a title theest perspective is that's that's a
great piece of misinformation where people think, oh, well, I've
got insurance on my title.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
No, you don't have.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Insurance on your title.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
So, as a result, they feel safe. Right, you walk
out of the title company, you feel safe. You're not
saying you're driving around in a vehicle that has no
insurance on it.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, such a great point.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, fake fake feeling of security, the sugar pill phenomenon
as they called it. All right, walk us through because
you were in the real estate industry which allowed you
to kind of carouse around and find the perfect victim
every time when you're driving around saying I think I
might do that house. Walk us through how you would
process what sort of house you were looking for, and
how you would carry it out.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
So if the house you know, it's funny. I've worked
with a home title lock and we we had shot
a commercial one time and we were driving through the
neighborhood through a neighborhood. They were like, which neighborhood. I
was like, pick a neighborhood. If the houses are livable,
then I absolutely they're absolutely vulnerable to this crime. I
(20:56):
could drive through your neighborhood, any middle class, lower middle class,
upper middle class neighborhood, and I could drive through that
neighborhood and I could find a house, write the address down.
House looks like it's in good shape. I can then
turn around and go online. I can find the title
to that house. I can see if there's any lians
on the house. I can see if there's any you know,
(21:18):
such as a mortgage. I can then create a satisfaction
of mortgage. Satisfy the mortgage. So I've now created the
equity in the house. A lot of people think, well,
wait a second, I have a mortgage, so I don't
really I have a mortgage. My house is worth four
hundred thousand. I have a mortgage for three hundred and
ninety thousand dollars. I don't have any equity. I'll create
the equity. I'll file that a one page document called
(21:41):
a satisfaction of mortgage or a release of lian, get
it notarized with a fake notary. File that that satisfaction
and that mortgage disappears as far as public records is concerned.
I can then either I can either create a fake
driver's license or identification card in the homeowner's name, and
(22:02):
I can borrow against that property. Or I can simply
create a new warranty deed and file that in public records,
which takes the title out of the true homeowner's name
places it into whatever identity's name I want could be
a synthetic identity, could be a stolen identity, and then
I could put that house on the market and sell it,
(22:24):
or I could try and sell it myself. I could
actually get someone from let's say a real estate agent,
have them list it, or I could list it myself,
and then I can sell that property.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
There are actually.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Companies right now online that will buy your house unseen.
They send out what's called an appraiser that does a
it's a field appraiser where they basically do what's called
a drive by appraisal. They'll simply look at the outside
of the house. They'll give you kind of a low
ball offer. But myself, as a home title thief, I
don't care if they're giving me a low ball offer.
(22:58):
If they're saying, hey, house is worth four hundred thousand,
we're going to give you three hundred and sixty thousand.
Is that okay with you? Of course it's okay with me.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
That's all free money for you, right, yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Right, think about it too. I can go online. I
can open a bank account, I can close the loans
or the mortgages online. Almost most states allow you to
do a remote closing. So it's alway with a remote notary,
so I can go online. I don't even have to
go to the title company. I then give them my
(23:30):
wiring instructions, have them wire the funds from the title
company's account into the bank account of my choosing. I
then just have to transfer that money again or remove
the money. I could buy bitcoin, I could buy any
number of precious metals. There's many ways to launder money. Yeah,
So it's just it's so easy. And the thing about
(23:53):
it is that everybody involved in these transactions is doing
what they do on a daily basis. I'm not asking
anybody to do anything special for me, right, I'm not
asking the title company to do can you do this
special thing? Or can you break the law or been
the law? No, everybody's just doing what they do.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
That's amazing. They don't think anything's wrong. Yeah, it's the
perfect crime. It really is.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
If you're a criminal, the process is just perfectly set
up for you to succeed and be gone before anyone
knows that the scams occurred.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I want to talk about one ear.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
We haven't talked about this before, but I'm seeing a
lot more, a lot more of us have second homes,
or they're renting them out on Airbnb or vrbo. That
sort of home does that sort of increase your vulnerability
if you're.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Renting your home out a lot.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
It certainly makes it a lot easier. It makes it
a lot easier. Not that a normal homeowner isn't in jeopardy,
because they certainly are. But if you have an Airbnb
or you have a rental property, then it's much easier
for me because I can really really do a lot
more with that property. For instance, if it's an Airbnb
(25:04):
and I rent the Airbnb for two weeks, I can
now sell that property multiple times, or I could borrow
multiple mortgages on the property, and I can get a
lot more of a percentage of the home. That the
house is worth four hundred thousand, I could probably get
a loan for close to four hundred thousand, and I
can get that loan from multiple banks. Because I'm now
in possession of the home. It means that the bank
(25:25):
themselves can order an appraisal and I can let that
appraiser into the house to walk around the house. Wow,
And I've I've gotten up to six mortgages on a
home before, so I've literally a single home because because
once again public records is this messed up. They will
simply allow you to continue to record mortgages on a home.
(25:49):
And there's nobody in public records that's saying, you know
that this doesn't look right like that. You know, nobody's saying,
wait a second, this is there's six first more, there's
six mortgages on this house. Nobody's doing that. They simply
record the documents. If it's notarized and signed by a
by an employee of the bank, they record the documents.
(26:11):
They can't not record it. They have to buy law.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, we've had a couple of the clerk sign there
is powerless. We'd love to stop it, but we're powerless.
We just have to process it. It's it's quite remarkable.
Now we only got a few seconds left. If home
title lock had been on the homes that you were
hitting back in the day, you would have been thwart
it pretty quickly, right.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Yeah, that I'd say home, I would say home home
title lock. It would be an absolute the worst nightmare
for a title thief because the homeowner gets notified and
now I can be arrested in the middle of the crime.
I don't have the time that I'm relying on and
the anonymity that I'm relying on, because now the homeowner
and law enforcement are looking for me. They know what's happening.
(26:54):
And that's, like I said, that's that's someone like myself's
worst nightmare.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Real time alert is the key to stopping this crime.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Matthew Cox, I'm so glad you're one of the most
entrepreneurial people I've ever met. I'm so glad you're using
your entrepreneurialism to help protect us. Now, what a great interview,
and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah, great, great conversation. As always, my friend.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
All right, folks, everybody, we're gonna take a qui commercial.
Mak will be right back after a few messages. But
while we're doing that, do me a favor. Go to
hometitle lock dot com right now. Use our promo code
JT N thirty. You're gonna get a free look at
your title history report so you can see if your
title is still in your name, and when you sign up,
you're already going to receive a free extended thirty day
trial of that million dollar Triple Locked protection, which includes
(27:36):
twenty four to seven monitoring of your home title right
instant alerts if anything's about to happen. No, Matt Cox'
is gonna be able to hit you because you' go
to know right away. And if fraud happens, the US
based experts at hometitel lock will spend up a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Let's fixt to fraud.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You store your title gets your piece of mind right back.
There's gonna be no cost to you, so don't wait.
Get that piece of mind with a free title history
report in thirty days of free protection now at hometitle
lock dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Promo code ATNF will be right back.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Welcome back in America to have very special edition of
Justin News, No Noise. We're taking a look at the
crime of home title theft. We want to make sure
everybody who watches this show is educated. The FBI calls
it house deealing, and who better to break down how
law enforcement deals with it than a former FBI agent himself.
Our good friend Art Fitzdemeier joins us now. Art, welcome
(28:33):
back to the show.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
John. It's great to be back and listening to you.
I don't know if you need me anymore you've figure out.
I hope your viewers listen to you as well as
listen to us.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
We're so blessed to have people with your experience and
the great work you've done serving your country over these
many decades.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
This is an old crime, right, It.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Was back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, but it
was harder to do back then. Then all of a
sudden we moved to the digital era. Cyber criminals, man,
is like one of the easiest crimes to pull off.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Right, that's exactly right. I've been with home title lock.
Now I'm in my ninth year, but you know I
experienced in my early career as a FBI. Actually, I
hate to tell you, I was back in the nineteen
seventies in Chicago. There were early versions of stealing homes,
mostly from the elderly, and so when I saw this company,
(29:26):
the first thing I thought of was number one, I'm vulnerable.
And so when I talked to them, I told them
I wanted to do one thing. One I wanted to
be part of the company, and number two, I wanted
to get the word out that everybody owns a house
has a problem if they do not watch the equity
in their home and if they don't do it, nobody's
(29:48):
going to do it for them. And that's why I
think home title lock is so important. You know, they
don't understand that in this day and age, with AI
and photoshop, any competent digital thief can download a copy
of their title or their deed and they it's so
(30:11):
simple to forge a new one and file it in
the count of Recorder's office. The kund of Recorder has
to file the document, it's presented and filled out. They're
required by alaw to do that, so it's easy for
them to get into a position where they can take
out loans on your house. And once that happens, then
you're in a world of hurt. I've seen people that
(30:31):
have had to fight this on their own because they
were not aware of it until after the money was missing.
They'd have to hire an attorney. And this happened early
on in my experience here at home title family on
the West Coast. Their house title got forged. They lost
hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity. They had to
(30:53):
hire an attorney to go to court. Took them over
two years to finally be heard by a judge. The
judge finally ordered the house back in their name, but
it cost them so much and attorney's fees that they
had to sell the house to pay their attorney. I mean,
that's how crazy it gets. You just don't understand. If
(31:14):
you don't watch it, nobody else is going to do
it for you. And that's what home Title lock does. Listen,
we have the most sophisticated software out there as far
as I'm concerned. We're probably the biggest in the field
as well. But our software will watch your title in
a national database twenty four to seven. There's no day off,
(31:36):
you know, if you go on vacation, we're still going
to watch it for you. And with our million dollar
triple locked protection, if for some reason something touches your title.
Our restoration people, these are great people, by the way.
They're all platinum quality as far as I'm concerned. They
will work with you and we'll spend up to a
million dollars to put that title back in your name.
(31:58):
And that's a comfort that you can't possibly buy do
it yourself. It just doesn't work that way. So if
you go to home title dot com and you sign
up right now, you're going to get a copy of
your title. You'll know that the title is pure, that
it's in the name is supposed to be in, whether
(32:18):
it's your name or in a trust name. That's what
it's all about. And then our software will watch it
and we'll notify you immediately if there's an issue. Now,
if you've done something like a home equity loaner or
something that like, that will notify you that as well.
Anything it touches your title, you're going to hear from
us about it, and then you'll be told if you
(32:40):
don't recognize the document, then you should call us right
away and we will step into it and we'll make
your whole It's really that simple. It's for pennies a day.
I mean, I just when I look at all of
the stuff that's going on now. There's recently an article
by the FBI in Boston about New England and they
cover I think Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut and
(33:04):
Rhode Island, and they have had an outbreak actually of
title theft. They can't tell you exactly how many, quite frankly,
because it's all covered in a general category known as
mortgage theft, right, and so in fact, I talked to
them yesterday. They can't give me an exact number, but
(33:25):
they're telling you it's on the upswing. And this is today,
not last week or last year. It's going on now.
And so people need to understand that as they're going
to bed tonight, they'll sleep better if they know we're
watching their most important asset, their property. We will do
it for pennies a day, and you will be surprised
(33:49):
that you know how comfortable you're going to feel when
you have this little bit of surety in your life.
You know, people years ago I encouraged it and UH
got involved in a situation where there was a family
that their house burned down. They had they had fire coverage,
(34:12):
and the guy next door said, yeah, I said, I
had most of my equity stolen and I and I
said to the guy whose house was still burned, I said,
what would you feel better? Would your coverage company UH
called you the night before and said, look that uh
(34:32):
howell on your stove is going to catch fire and
cause the grease fire and burn your house down. Would
have been nice to get that notice. And the guy
next door, if he had had home tidle locked, he'd
have gotten that notice. We will tell you right away.
If something disturbs your title in any way, shape or form,
we would have been able to stop him from having
that problem. So you know, it's it's one of those
(34:53):
things where it's a degree of the exposure that you
have and your exposure is diminished pretty much zero if
you have home title locked. And even if nothing touches
your title, you know we're there. But if something does
touch your title, that's when it's really special. That's right,
(35:14):
because our restoration people will make you hole again almost overnight.
I mean, they're that good at it. And we do
this all the time. We are the experts, up.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
To a million dollars trying to help a single person
get their home back. That's such an amazing thing. You
said something very profound, Art, and that is that if
you own a home, you have a problem.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You have an Achilles heel.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
If you don't have home title lock, it's not worth
taking the risk. You don't want to be that guy
after the fire, and the fire in your case is
your home theft.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It's such an important thing to remember. Art.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
You've served your country for a very long time, and
I want to thank you for that great service. At
the FAT and also for helping us understand this crime
and get us better protected.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
We sure appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (35:53):
Well, thank you, because you're a good advocate for the homeowner,
not us. I mean, the homeowner needs to listen to you.
Your viewers better pay attention because you're telling them something
that if they don't know, it's about time they've figured
it out, So they should go to home title lock
dot com. Right now, John Solomon sends.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
You that is great. Your wisdom is profound. We love
you a lot. Thanks for joining us today. Good to
have you back on.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
All right, folks, we've heard from a lot today, right
You've heard from an investigative journalist, a guy who.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Used to commit this crime, and the FBI agent used
to sell these crimes. Next, you're going to hear the
story of a real victim of title fraud, someone who
actually went through the process. Find out how home Title
Lock helped her. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
I decided, actually I'm going to put home title Lock
on my mom's home.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Four months or so after.
Speaker 7 (36:50):
She passed, I got a notification from home Title Lock.
It notified me that there had been a change to
the deed that's why we acted so quick. Got it
strained out.
Speaker 8 (37:02):
Let my dad know that somebody has stolen your property.
He advised me that he had taken out home title
Lock about eight months earlier.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
We logged into home.
Speaker 8 (37:10):
Title Lock, he had five alerts. Immediately we contacted them
and within about.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Two weeks indeed was put back in my parents' name.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
A lot of people own property. Home title theft will
happen to somebody. Don't let it be you.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Now, real people talking about what happened when they went
to home title lock and got their home or their
loved ones home protected.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's important.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
If you've got nobly relative, this is a great way
to help protect them. Welcome back to this special edition
of Justin Who's No Noise.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I'm John Solomon.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Tonight, we're partnering with Home Title Lock, one of our
great friends, to put the spotlight on one of the fastest
growing crimes in America. The FBI calls at house stealing.
It's better known as title fraud in the legal profession.
We're about to bring on a real victim of this crime.
Joining us now, Jennifer Washington. Jennifer, thanks for joining us tonight.
Speaker 9 (37:56):
Thank you for having me, all.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Right, this is a really important story because I think
this is a trend line we're seeing in the crime itself.
How did you find out one of your homes wasn't
suddenly legally yours anymore?
Speaker 9 (38:09):
Well, in dealing with the postal mailing, I received mailings
for new ownership, and at first I'm like, okay, no big,
you know, nothing to be alarmed about. But then they continued,
and then I also received notification from a company asking
me to pay for a copy of the new title
(38:33):
in the in the new home ownership. So that's what
alerted me to begin with.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
So before that, there was no sign right, no one
at your door, no notification from the county or police.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
You just get.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Something to the mail saying, hey, congratulates it, and someone
else owns your home, right, correct?
Speaker 9 (38:51):
And I started getting notifications of you know, like the
mailers that say new residents, and then it had names
on it, and I'm like, wait a minute, that's not correct.
So I decided to look further into it.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
My goodness, all right, that moment you get that notification,
I can't imagine you get that gut suspicious feeling you
know something's not right. What are you feeling at that moment,
what's your next step?
Speaker 9 (39:21):
Well, I was caught off guard.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I was.
Speaker 9 (39:24):
I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know if
it was some type of error or if something really
had happened. But then I actually called the County Recorder's
office and they notified me of the change, so that
I went on the website, I also seen it. I
went over to the office and I actually paid for
(39:45):
the title transfer and it was a quick claim deed
that was done. So at that point I asked the
record what type of protections do they have against fraud?
Because this was incorrect, This was never done. It was fraudulent.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And here's the one thing I think most people don't
know that County Recorder even if they want to help you,
they can't help it. They have no legal power to
give you back your house of your title. Right, You're
stuck with them.
Speaker 9 (40:18):
I definitely said it's not They're responsibilit to investigate fraud.
So it was my burden to bear at that point.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
That is a burden, all right, So what do you
do next? I'll walk us through the journey of how
you got your house back Eventually.
Speaker 9 (40:38):
Well, in dealing with the bills. I did notice that
they own title lock, so I called them. I tried to.
I googled them to see what their company was, because
I had no idea what it was. And this all
comes from taking over the bills for the family home
(40:59):
due to the family, so I wasn't for sure what
I was looking at. But then once I called them,
they explained what their company provided and I advised them, hey,
I was dealing with the situation exactly what they protect
consumers from. I had advised them that there had been
(41:22):
a quick claim deed done fraudulently on the family home,
and they gave it to the appropriate department. Took off
from that point on.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Amazing. Boy.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
So you go from first having that feeling in the
pit of your stomach, I just lost my home. Something
bad's happened to me. Then you discover that because of
a relative, you had some of the hometit of lock protection.
That's got to be quite a whipsaw you're going through.
Speaker 9 (41:50):
Well still at that point, I was nervous, Yeah, because
I didn't have any information on the company, and I
knew between all of the existing family members, we did
not have the money to deal with this in a
court setting. I know it would have taken attorneys and
(42:10):
you know time and just months on end to fight
something like this on your own, and.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Then you get the house back. Home title lot comes
to exactly as advertised, right.
Speaker 9 (42:21):
They came back. I had no attorneys fees. They notified
me step by step the process. They hired an attorney.
The attorney took care of it. I couldn't recommend a
better company in this situation.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, so important.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
If you're someone sitting tonight with and you haven't checked
your tide in a long time, you don't have home
title Lock insurance, or you have an elderly person you
care for and you love and they put their whole
life into having that dream home, what would you tell
them to do tonight?
Speaker 9 (42:56):
Well, if you have the time to constantly monitor your title.
But in today's society, you're dealing with the home, the kids,
the family, you know, life's situations. So if you're in
a situation where you're not able to monitor that home
Title Lock can do it for you for a very
(43:19):
small monthly fee.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, and that burglar, that cyber carimer, they're counting on
that you are too busy to out check your title.
That's why home title Lock fills the gap for us.
What a great conversation, Jennifer. Your story is amazing. It's
inspiring for people. You just don't want to wake up
one day and be in the circumstance that you find
yourself in. Great to have you on the show again.
Speaker 9 (43:40):
Thanks for joining us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, I love the conversation so great. All right, folks,
what an amazing conversation. Someone who really went through it,
real thing, didn't know they even had the insurance protection,
but they began.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
But that's what home Title Lock does you.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All right, We're gonna take one more break out, one
more conversation to go. But before you do that, get
a little bit of homework asignment for you. Go to
home title lock dot com and get that peace of
mind with a free title history report in thirty days
of free protection. Now do you go to hometitle lock
dot com. You're gonna use a very special promo code
we have JTN thirty. You can also put your camera
at that QR code that'll get you going. But one
more time, Home title lock dot Com promo code JTN
(44:16):
thirty go do it during the commercial break. Don't give
yourself a moment more torment. We'll be right back after
these messages. Welcome back to America. Just a few more
minutes left before we head into the weekend. You've heard
some testimonies about home title lock and how it can
protect your home from the crime of home title theft.
(44:37):
And who better to talk more about that than the
title theft education expert from Home Title Lotch. She's one
of our good friends, Natalie Domingez.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Natalie, Welcome back.
Speaker 10 (44:47):
Hi John. Always great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
We love this conversation because I know somewhere tonight someone's
going to get protected and it's going to make a difference.
And that's why we do this special It's very exciting
for us. I think one of the things that I'm
struck by and now a lot of people, I think
don't realize if you don't have this protection, you don't
have this service, and your home.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Is suddenly pulled out from undon.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Your equity is taken, it is really difficult to go
back and do it. We're talking months and maybe even years.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Correct.
Speaker 10 (45:15):
Absolutely, I feel like a majority of the stories. You know,
part of my job is to make sure that I'm
up to date with the news. We know what's going on,
we know what to look for protect against almost every
story I see. You know, restoration can take years versus months, right,
and that's why we do what we do at Home
Title loc We have a network of legal experts around
the country. Every state, every municipality has different rules and
(45:39):
laws and ways that you go about handling restoration. And
every case can be so different. Right. It can be
just someone steals your title. It can be that they
sold the home that they have already gone through wire transfers,
that the bank is coming after the homeowner. I mean,
we've even seen homeowners lose their homes to the bank
because the bank as frankly better lawyers. And it's very,
(46:02):
very sad. So that's why we do what we do.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Boy, it's disheartening to hear.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
We have a repertoire of things that we do already
to protect our home. We got the home security system,
you got your fire and prevention loss insurance. You've got
your hurricane insurance if you live in Florida, earthquake insurance
if you live in California. A lot of people don't realize,
and I think they thought maybe when I bought my
title insurance. I bought my house, I'm protected. But without that,
(46:29):
this crime is completely unprotected. Right Without home titleock, you
don't really have a way of protecting yourself unless you
get to call the county clerk every single day, right.
Speaker 10 (46:39):
Yeah, absolutely, And I think that's the hard part about
the misconception about title insurance, right, And we're not insurance.
We aren't going to just you know, throw some money
at you and say, okay, you're on your own. The
best part about our system, in my personal opinion, is
our restoration. We are the propriet proprietary you know, makers
of the software, but we really are the only company
(47:00):
that does restoration. We are with a homeowner every step
of the way, taking care of it for them, getting
the home back in their name, fighting the good fight
so that the homeowner isn't on their own, because if
they are on their own, you know, they're spending their
money on legal fees. We've seen new stories where people
can't even do that because they can't afford the legal fees.
You know, they're going through years and years of litigation
(47:20):
with their own personal life going on, They're getting sued
by other companies and just it's this really scary thing
of being on your own, especially if you are more vulnerable.
If you're an elderly, you know, person living on your own,
you don't have people to fight for you, and a caretaker,
you know, takes advantage of you if you just don't
have family or friends to count on. We want to
(47:42):
make sure that people are not on their own. And
one of the most important things too about our monitoring
system is we monitor the property, not the person. You know,
for things like security cameras, you got eyes on the home,
for alarm systems. You know, you're watching to see if
someone's going to try to break into your home. No
one's watching their title. No one's going down to the
county office once a week and looking to make sure
(48:04):
their title is still there. And some counties in across
the country do have their own kind of monitoring systems,
but it's less than ten percent of the United States.
Not every county, not every town has one. We monitor
everyone and anyone that is a property right to make
sure that they are taken care of land home.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Today, Matt Cox brought something in that I had heard before.
But you know, we're all a lot more people renting
out their home. Part of the year, maybe an Airbnb
or vrbo. Those people are even more vulnerable. You've got
these all covered, don't you.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (48:39):
Absolutely, if you are a property, if not. If you
are a property, if you have a property, we monitor
the property. Whether it's vacant land, whether you have multiple
residences on the property, whether it's under a trust and
not under your name. It doesn't matter. If it's a
property and it has a personal number, we can monitor.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
So very important. And time to detection. That's another thing
we heard from Art.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
The quicker you detected, the quicker you get this back.
That's the key to what you guys do. You're on
top of it. The second that notification occurs, we're ready
in the protection business.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
That's so important.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Natal, I want to thank you for the partnership, all
the great people you make available for these conversations, yourself included.
This is a really important education process. We're so lucky
to have this partnership with hometitle lock. One more time, folks,
go to hometitle lock before we start your weekend home
title lock dot com and you use the promo code
JTN thirty. You're going to get a free look at
your title history reports. You can see if your title
(49:32):
is in your name. When you sign up, you also
receive a free extended thirty day trial.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Of a million dollar triple lock protection.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
That's a great deal, but check it out twenty four
to seven monitoring, instant alerts, and if fraud ever happens,
THEIRS US based experts at hometitl lock are going to
spend up a million bucks. You get the fraud fixed
and get your home back in the end. That's important.
Don't wait, get the peace of mind userve hometitle.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Lock dot com promo code JTN thirty. With that, I'm
going to send you
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Off into the week, God blessed, we'll see end money
Good eating America, and welcome to this special edition of
Jess and Who's No Noise. I'm your host, John Solomon
reporting Kids Always from Washington, d C. My co host
Amana Head, Well, she is out in the field covering
President Trump and the White House inside the poultice. So
you're gonna fly solo with me. But we've got a
lot to dive into. I promised you at the beginning
year we'd spend a lot of time educating you on
(00:41):
what I believe is one of the most devastating and
silent crimes in America. The reason it's silent is by
the time you know you're a victim, you may already
beat hundreds of thousands of dollars upside down in debt
and you may not even own your home.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's exactly right. You know what this is.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's called title fraud. It's a crime the FBI calls
house deealing. If you own a home, you could already
be at risk because the cybercrimes, cyber criminals carrying this out,
they want your most valuable asset, not your gold, not
your crypto coins, not your checkbook, They want the equity
in your home. Now it's an amazing fact, total US
(01:16):
home equity now stands at thirty two trillion dollars, and
that makes it highly vulnerable to theft without proper protection.
And it just takes one forged document file that your
local recorder's office, who, by the way, can't do anything
about it, and suddenly someone else owns your home on paper.
Imagine finding out your home is no longer in your
name and scammers that have taken out loans, drained your
equity and left you to deal with that fallout, that mess.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It's only it's not only home owners too.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
If you're looking to buy your own property land, it
could turn out you are buying it from someone who
doesn't even own it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's going on right now.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Title pirates sending emails out asking potential buyers to buy land.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
That they don't even know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
County recorders across America have also begun to sound the
alarm as the number of victimizing homeowners has been surging.
In Portage County, OHI, I'll get a load of this.
Just a few weeks ago, the county recorder express concern
that most homeowners don't know how vulnerable they are.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
She described the.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
End goal of home title thieves simply this way, they
just really want cash. They're trying to get cash off
your equity in your home. That is why we add
Justin News have been partnering throughout this year with Home
Titled Lock because they offer an exclusive million dollar Triple
Locked protection giving you twenty four to seven monitoring of
your homes title urgent alerts if there's any ever any
(02:32):
change on the paperwork, and if title fraud should ever
cure God forbid, their US based festoration team will spend
up to one million dollars to fix the fraud and
restore your title. Let's say, really good deal. We'll talk
more about that throughout the show tonight. This evening, we're
going to hear from former FBI agents, an Emmy Award
winning reporter and consumer advocate, as well as a former title.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Thief who served thirteen years in prison for this heinous crime.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
We also hear from a real victim of title thief.
That's really important too. I want you to from the
front lines what it feels like when you go through
that whrror. So stay with us throughout the hour. By
the end of this hour, you're going to be a
lot better informed and know a little bit more about
how to protect your home and your equity before it's
too late. Now to get us started on this very
busy night, We've got a great guess. He's an Emmy
and multi award winning news anchor and investigative reporter.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Guy close to my heart.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
He's recently been spending a lot of time researching this
growing crime of home title theft. So you're the consumer,
you're the homeowner, could be better protect Joining us right now,
my good friend John Summer, John, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
John, So great to be with you as always. And yeah,
this is a really important subject and your lead into
this really pretty much nailed it. This is a crime
that is growing in leaps and bounds. You use the
term titled pirates, which I just love. You know, it's
(03:55):
house stealing or deep theft, but title pirates pretty much
describes it because it's such a stealth crime that most
people don't know that they got hit and tell us
way too late.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah it is, and by that time you have a
lot of digging out to do.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's months.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I talked to someone last week almost eighteen months before
they could get right, and they didn't have hometown of
lock and so they had to go through the process
of hiring a lawyer and going to court. It's really
a painful process, and we want to make sure people
avoid that.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Now, I want to start with something that's the motive.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
So all right, we're going to meet someone who did
this for a time and went to prison for at
Matt Cox. But at the end of the day, you know,
people think, well, I got my cash in the bank,
I got to cover my ATM pin when I go
put my PIN number in to get some kind of
cash out of the bank. But the biggest, most lucrative
thing we own is our home. It is the prize
or prizes for a fraud sturb And it seems like
(04:50):
the cyber criminals are getting more and more anxious to
tap that very big asset you own in your portfolio.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, most people, and especially right now the stark market
kind of going back and forth, and people are concerned
about their investments and their four oh one care or whatever,
or maybe gold or bitcoin. But most people don't realize
John that their biggest investment almost always is going to
be in their home and their property, and they don't
(05:18):
understand just how vulnerable they are to having that property
stolen and John, it isn't like they're stealing the structure
of the home or whatever. They steal the deed or
the titles of the property. And they can do this
very easily online right now and with artificial intelligence, and
you can get a notary stamp. It's so easy to do,
(05:41):
and that once you have that property in your name,
then you can leverage it. Sometimes they'll sell the property,
but more than likely they're going to take out loans
or multiple loans. And you'll talk to Matt Cox, he
was a past master at doing this. But it can
be done by any anybody anywhere in the world, and
(06:02):
there are criminal enterprises all around the world. I can
find out anything about you or anybody any of your
listeners right now and viewers and be able to take
that title of that property. And it doesn't have to
have a structure on it. It could be open land.
Here on the central coast of California. Our biggest problem,
because I deal with the local District Attorney's office, is
(06:26):
stealing just open land and because people aren't watching out
for it, you know, they don't pay attention to it,
or the cabin in the woods, or maybe you have
an Airbnb.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
It's all up for grounds.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, it is remarkable.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You may mentioned something I think is really at the
heart of why this crime has exploded, and that is
our digital footprint is everybody, everywhere, Everything about us is
out and open. That's the consequence of the Internet era,
of the digital age, social media age. So it doesn't
take long for somebody to go find one of those
deeds that are online ford your signature because they found
(07:01):
it somewhere else, and then submit it. And there's a
real weak spot in this security system because it turns
out the county recorder, the person who get the they
have no power to say that's not you or stop.
You're really kind of vulnerable because the best person who
can protect you has no legal power to stop the transaction.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Right, You're absolutely right, John, Because if all the paperwork
looks paperwork looks proper, you know, if everything looks like
it's accurate and there's a notary stamp on it and
so on, they can't ask you if it might be fraudulent.
They have to pass it, and they do, and there's
no way to stop it from happening. And nowadays, you know,
(07:42):
it can even happen online. You don't even have to
go down to the county clerk's office.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, it's just so easy for the for the criminal
and for us unless you're checking every day. Really, there's
only is it, like you can send a letter saying, hey,
county recorder, don't transfer my home to anyone unless I
tell you you have to check every day to see
if someone's doing it, and no one has time. But
we're busy.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Nobody, nobody's going to do that, John, I mean, and
it's the only way, right. You just can't have time
to do it. You have to have some sort of
a system to be able to monitor that title or
that deed to your property. And you know, it's just
simply not practical for you to be able to go
down to the clerk's office. And even if you did,
the minute that you leave, somebody could steal it. It
(08:25):
can happen that fast, and.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It does just crazy. It's really mind numbing.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
The ingenuity and entrepreneurialism of these criminals is pretty impressive,
but it comes at our expense. I want to turn
to some real life examples because they're piling up. Every
time I do a clip switch, a clip search, or
a Google search, I see another case down I think
it was in Lehigh Valley in Florida, right in the
(08:52):
Tampa area. There was a woman she ended up trying
to grab two houses. I think she ultimately got convicted
by a jury. But her mentality was finders keepers. If
I get it, it was out of luck.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
That's I know that case.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And yeah, she she would just drive around, you know,
the area and looked for properties that maybe somebody wasn't
living in even though they you know, they they actually
occupied the home, but they might have another home someplace house,
and so they're not there watching over it.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
One of the ones that was most.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Interesting in the Tampa Bay area as a couple there,
Larry and dream of Bill be and they were actually
they bought a home and they were doing a lot
of construction on it, so they weren't living in the
property at that particular point. As they were doing all
the renovation and so on. Somebody went in they noticed
(09:45):
that no one was there occupying it the whole time,
and they stole the deed to the property and sold
it to somebody else without the Bilbies even knowing it,
and they had to go through the court system. John,
this is the biggest problem because you have to hire
an attorney and then you have to go through the
court system, and we know how nasty that can be sometimes,
(10:10):
and it might take years to be able to reclaim
what is actually your rightful property and your deed. And
the only way to prevent that is to be able
to have some sort of a system to be able
to protect you, just like you would with a credit card,
or maybe you have a ring camera on your home
so you can see who's coming and going and so on.
(10:30):
But as we said before, for most people, this is
their biggest asset, and most people don't even think about
protecting it.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, the last time we talked about our titles probably
when we bought the house and then we just move on.
We don't think about it, but there's about it every day. Yeah,
it's crazy. You mentioned security cameras, and I've seen a
couple of recent stories where the first time a homeowners,
maybe it was a vacation home if I've remember correctly,
the first time they realized they were troubles.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Even before they got the notice of making there were.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Strange people walking around their property like they owned it.
That's literally what could happen here, right? The people who
buying it might not even know that they've been duped.
So you've got the buyer and the person who owns
the home both being victimized. The nature of these criminals
and how crafted they are is kind of jaw dropping.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And that's just it, because the only victims aren't just
the people that own the property. It's the people that
have been duped into buying the property because they think
that it's free and clear. And now you bought a
house and then all of a sudden you find out
that that was not the rightful owner that you bought
it from in the first place. And then there's the banks,
the loan companies and all of these entities as well.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
That everybody is a victim. It's not just the owner
of the property.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, no doubt. Now you said the key.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And then this is exactly so with the cops and
the prosecutors, the lawyers have all told us is to
have some form of a system that's constantly monitoring your title,
alerts you and jumps into action. You've been doing great
consumer reporting for decades, you know how important is to
protect consumers. You've made lots of great journalism to make
us smarter as consumers tell us a little bit title lock.
(12:10):
What does it do? How does it give us that
peace of mind? What is it doing day in and
day out that I don't have to worry about doing that?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Well, you mentioned a company, home title Lock, and they
have a website, home title lock dot com.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Go on there.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I mean, I encourage your followers to do their own
due diligence and just go on the side see the
stories that are on there. Understand that everybody that owns
a piece of property is vulnerable. And the only way
that you're going to really secure that deed or that
title to the property is to be able to have
(12:46):
a system that number one monitors the property, which you
can't practically do. Number two alerts you if there's something
fishy going on and home title Lock, Hey, I got
a great story, John. My wife and I just put
our home up for sale and last week I got
(13:10):
an alert because I'm a member of Home title Lock,
and I what the heck is this?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
You know, because our home is on the market.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, what they alerted me to is that the property
was put on the MLS at the multiple listing service.
Now that's not somebody stealing the property, but it's home
title lock, alerting me to something that is going on
with my property, my home. I was grateful for that
because I didn't even think that they did this as
(13:38):
part of the service. So they monitor, they alert, and
then if for some reason that title gets transferred to
somebody else, they will work with you to restore that
title back to your proper name and avoid having to
go through the court system hiring an attorney, which can
(13:58):
be extremely defensive. They will give you up to a
million dollars worth of service to be able to put
that title back into your rightful dame. It's an incredible company.
They are the pioneers. They invented this system of monitoring,
and I just encourage everyone to go onto the website
and take a look at it and educate yourself to
(14:20):
how big of a problem this is.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
They really are pioneers.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
One last question before we head out to the break, John,
You've been watching this for some time. Every prosecutor I've
talked to, every FBI, and I talked to every cop
I talked to, said this is a trend line that's
been going up. Any doubt in your mind, it's just
going to get more and more popular for the criminals to.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Do, so easy to do, John, And in fact, you're
going to talk to Art Fitzenmeier, who was a retired
FBI agent. He'll toudg you tell you about this, as
well as Matthew Cox, who spent some time in the
Big House because it was so easy to do. And
then I think you're also going to have a victim
of this as well, so your viewer will have a
(15:01):
the length and breadth of what this crime is. It
is stealth, it's huge and everybody should be aware of it.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. I agree.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
It's something I didn't even know existed a few years ago,
but it is becoming more one of us did. Yeah,
it's so remarkable down Summer. You do such amazing work.
You're a great journalist. Great opportunity to have you on
the top of the show today. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Thanks so much, John, really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I always enjoyed talking to a great reporter like you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
All right, folks, after the break, we're going to get
an interview with a man who used to commit this
crime to explain how he did it and how you
can protet yourself and by the way, how easy it
is to victimize people. But While we're in the break,
I want you to do me a favorite. Go to
home title lock dot com and use our promo code
jt N thirty.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Here's what You're going to get a free look at your.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Title history reports so you can see if your title
is still in your name or if someone's ready to
be unplaying it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And when you sign up, you also.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Receive a free extended thirty day trial, a million dollar
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to seven modering of your home titles alerks if anything
at all changes to your title and if fraud should
help and got forbid. The US based experts at home
beedle locked will spend up to a million bucks it
takes to fraud and restore your title at no extra
cost to you.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
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Speaker 1 (16:13):
Title history report in thirty days at pre protection right
now at home title lock dot com. It's homebedlelock dot
com promo code jtnthon.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
We'll be right, Matthew.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Welcome back to America to this special justin News report.
We are taking a deep dive into the crime of
title theft and joining us to discuss more about that
is someone.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Who used to commit this crime.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
He's now reformed, and he's now leading all of us
to a better understanding how it's done.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Our good friend, Matthew Cox, Matthew, welcome back.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
All right.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I think spent about thirteen years in prison. You did
about fifty five million dollars of this sort of home
title theft. Thought it was pretty easy for you, right
to pull this off. Most people were pretty unsuspecting.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Right, Oh, absolutely, it's extremely easy crime to commit.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, and you're gone by the time someone like me
finds out my house has been stolen from me, My
paperwork has been changed, my equity's gone. You're in some
other counties, some other country by the time, right.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yeah, By the time by the time the homeowner is notified,
I've already cleared the bank accounts and I'm in another state,
or like you said, maybe I'm on vacation in another country,
probably onto my next victim.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. That's the amazing thing about it.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
The gap from the time a victim knows that they've
been victimized is so long that the bad guys are
way down the road. I want to talk a little
bit about the reasons why this has grown so much,
particularly in the last decade. I guess the digital era
brings us a lot of conveniences, but it also brings
those conveniences to cyber thieves. All of our records are
(17:57):
online now, so it's just easier to assume some one's identity, right.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Yes, much easier now than when I was doing it
twenty years ago. And access to public records, not not
only people's personal information, but public records is much more
accessible now because now I can I can go sit
in my local coffee shop and use their WiFi, and
I can go online and search titles. Whereas twenty years ago,
(18:25):
I had to physically go downtown to public records, I
had to go into the building. I had to go
into the office and search those records. You know in person,
you're on video camera. I mean, that's those are all
vulnerable situations. But now I can. I can order of
Vanela latte and search your search the records and create
(18:46):
a warranty, deed or whatever documents I need to create
to steal a home or transfer the title, and I
can do it right in the coffee shop.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's pretty amazing, I just said, thinking out of how
easy it isn't convenient, and.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
It really does scare you.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I want to go through some of the misconceptions that
people have because a lot of people think, well, I
don't have this problem. I bought title insurance when I
bought my house. Title insurance doesn't protect you the moment
that the title has been transferred to you, right.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Right, So it title insurance covers you up to the
moment you purchase your house. All title insurance is saying is, hey,
there are no leans on your home other than maybe
the mortgage that you're taking out from your bank. That
you have a clean lean. So let's say two days later,
I can go downtown and I can file a transfer.
(19:36):
I could transfer your title, you know, create a new title,
or I could satisfy the mortgage on your house. There's
a number of things I can do. And unless you're
your titles being monitored, you're not notified of those things.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
So yeah, so you're you're and just like you said,
which from a title theest perspective is that's that's a
great piece of misinformation where people think, oh, well, I've
got insurance on my title.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
No, you don't have.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Insurance on your title.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
So, as a result, they feel safe. Right, you walk
out of the title company, you feel safe. You're not
saying you're driving around in a vehicle that has no
insurance on it.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, such a great point.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, fake fake feeling of security, the sugar pill phenomenon
as they called it. All right, walk us through because
you were in the real estate industry which allowed you
to kind of carouse around and find the perfect victim
every time when you're driving around saying I think I
might do that house. Walk us through how you would
process what sort of house you were looking for, and
how you would carry it out.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
So if the house you know, it's funny. I've worked
with a home title lock and we we had shot
a commercial one time and we were driving through the
neighborhood through a neighborhood. They were like, which neighborhood. I
was like, pick a neighborhood. If the houses are livable,
then I absolutely they're absolutely vulnerable to this crime. I
(20:56):
could drive through your neighborhood, any middle class, lower middle class,
upper middle class neighborhood, and I could drive through that
neighborhood and I could find a house, write the address down.
House looks like it's in good shape. I can then
turn around and go online. I can find the title
to that house. I can see if there's any lians
on the house. I can see if there's any you know,
(21:18):
such as a mortgage. I can then create a satisfaction
of mortgage. Satisfy the mortgage. So I've now created the
equity in the house. A lot of people think, well,
wait a second, I have a mortgage, so I don't
really I have a mortgage. My house is worth four
hundred thousand. I have a mortgage for three hundred and
ninety thousand dollars. I don't have any equity. I'll create
the equity. I'll file that a one page document called
(21:41):
a satisfaction of mortgage or a release of lian, get
it notarized with a fake notary. File that that satisfaction
and that mortgage disappears as far as public records is concerned.
I can then either I can either create a fake
driver's license or identification card in the homeowner's name, and
(22:02):
I can borrow against that property. Or I can simply
create a new warranty deed and file that in public records,
which takes the title out of the true homeowner's name
places it into whatever identity's name I want could be
a synthetic identity, could be a stolen identity, and then
I could put that house on the market and sell it,
(22:24):
or I could try and sell it myself. I could
actually get someone from let's say a real estate agent,
have them list it, or I could list it myself,
and then I can sell that property.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
There are actually.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Companies right now online that will buy your house unseen.
They send out what's called an appraiser that does a
it's a field appraiser where they basically do what's called
a drive by appraisal. They'll simply look at the outside
of the house. They'll give you kind of a low
ball offer. But myself, as a home title thief, I
don't care if they're giving me a low ball offer.
(22:58):
If they're saying, hey, house is worth four hundred thousand,
we're going to give you three hundred and sixty thousand.
Is that okay with you? Of course it's okay with me.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
That's all free money for you, right, yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Right, think about it too. I can go online. I
can open a bank account, I can close the loans
or the mortgages online. Almost most states allow you to
do a remote closing. So it's alway with a remote notary,
so I can go online. I don't even have to
go to the title company. I then give them my
(23:30):
wiring instructions, have them wire the funds from the title
company's account into the bank account of my choosing. I
then just have to transfer that money again or remove
the money. I could buy bitcoin, I could buy any
number of precious metals. There's many ways to launder money. Yeah,
So it's just it's so easy. And the thing about
(23:53):
it is that everybody involved in these transactions is doing
what they do on a daily basis. I'm not asking
anybody to do anything special for me, right, I'm not
asking the title company to do can you do this
special thing? Or can you break the law or been
the law? No, everybody's just doing what they do.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
That's amazing. They don't think anything's wrong. Yeah, it's the
perfect crime. It really is.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
If you're a criminal, the process is just perfectly set
up for you to succeed and be gone before anyone
knows that the scams occurred.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I want to talk about one ear.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
We haven't talked about this before, but I'm seeing a
lot more, a lot more of us have second homes,
or they're renting them out on Airbnb or vrbo. That
sort of home does that sort of increase your vulnerability
if you're.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Renting your home out a lot.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
It certainly makes it a lot easier. It makes it
a lot easier. Not that a normal homeowner isn't in jeopardy,
because they certainly are. But if you have an Airbnb
or you have a rental property, then it's much easier
for me because I can really really do a lot
more with that property. For instance, if it's an Airbnb
(25:04):
and I rent the Airbnb for two weeks, I can
now sell that property multiple times, or I could borrow
multiple mortgages on the property, and I can get a
lot more of a percentage of the home. That the
house is worth four hundred thousand, I could probably get
a loan for close to four hundred thousand, and I
can get that loan from multiple banks. Because I'm now
in possession of the home. It means that the bank
(25:25):
themselves can order an appraisal and I can let that
appraiser into the house to walk around the house. Wow,
And I've I've gotten up to six mortgages on a
home before, so I've literally a single home because because
once again public records is this messed up. They will
simply allow you to continue to record mortgages on a home.
(25:49):
And there's nobody in public records that's saying, you know
that this doesn't look right like that. You know, nobody's saying,
wait a second, this is there's six first more, there's
six mortgages on this house. Nobody's doing that. They simply
record the documents. If it's notarized and signed by a
by an employee of the bank, they record the documents.
(26:11):
They can't not record it. They have to buy law.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, we've had a couple of the clerk sign there
is powerless. We'd love to stop it, but we're powerless.
We just have to process it. It's it's quite remarkable.
Now we only got a few seconds left. If home
title lock had been on the homes that you were
hitting back in the day, you would have been thwart
it pretty quickly, right.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Yeah, that I'd say home, I would say home home
title lock. It would be an absolute the worst nightmare
for a title thief because the homeowner gets notified and
now I can be arrested in the middle of the crime.
I don't have the time that I'm relying on and
the anonymity that I'm relying on, because now the homeowner
and law enforcement are looking for me. They know what's happening.
(26:54):
And that's, like I said, that's that's someone like myself's
worst nightmare.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Real time alert is the key to stopping this crime.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Matthew Cox, I'm so glad you're one of the most
entrepreneurial people I've ever met. I'm so glad you're using
your entrepreneurialism to help protect us. Now, what a great interview,
and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah, great, great conversation. As always, my friend.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
All right, folks, everybody, we're gonna take a qui commercial.
Mak will be right back after a few messages. But
while we're doing that, do me a favor. Go to
hometitle lock dot com right now. Use our promo code
JT N thirty. You're gonna get a free look at
your title history report so you can see if your
title is still in your name, and when you sign up,
you're already going to receive a free extended thirty day
trial of that million dollar Triple Locked protection, which includes
(27:36):
twenty four to seven monitoring of your home title right
instant alerts if anything's about to happen. No, Matt Cox'
is gonna be able to hit you because you' go
to know right away. And if fraud happens, the US
based experts at hometitel lock will spend up a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Let's fixt to fraud.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You store your title gets your piece of mind right back.
There's gonna be no cost to you, so don't wait.
Get that piece of mind with a free title history
report in thirty days of free protection now at hometitle
lock dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Promo code ATNF will be right back.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Welcome back in America to have very special edition of
Justin News, No Noise. We're taking a look at the
crime of home title theft. We want to make sure
everybody who watches this show is educated. The FBI calls
it house deealing, and who better to break down how
law enforcement deals with it than a former FBI agent himself.
Our good friend Art Fitzdemeier joins us now. Art, welcome
(28:33):
back to the show.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
John. It's great to be back and listening to you.
I don't know if you need me anymore you've figure out.
I hope your viewers listen to you as well as
listen to us.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
We're so blessed to have people with your experience and
the great work you've done serving your country over these
many decades.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
This is an old crime, right, It.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Was back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, but it
was harder to do back then. Then all of a
sudden we moved to the digital era. Cyber criminals, man,
is like one of the easiest crimes to pull off.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Right, that's exactly right. I've been with home title lock.
Now I'm in my ninth year, but you know I
experienced in my early career as a FBI. Actually, I
hate to tell you, I was back in the nineteen
seventies in Chicago. There were early versions of stealing homes,
mostly from the elderly, and so when I saw this company,
(29:26):
the first thing I thought of was number one, I'm vulnerable.
And so when I talked to them, I told them
I wanted to do one thing. One I wanted to
be part of the company, and number two, I wanted
to get the word out that everybody owns a house
has a problem if they do not watch the equity
in their home and if they don't do it, nobody's
(29:48):
going to do it for them. And that's why I
think home title lock is so important. You know, they
don't understand that in this day and age, with AI
and photoshop, any competent digital thief can download a copy
of their title or their deed and they it's so
(30:11):
simple to forge a new one and file it in
the count of Recorder's office. The kund of Recorder has
to file the document, it's presented and filled out. They're
required by alaw to do that, so it's easy for
them to get into a position where they can take
out loans on your house. And once that happens, then
you're in a world of hurt. I've seen people that
(30:31):
have had to fight this on their own because they
were not aware of it until after the money was missing.
They'd have to hire an attorney. And this happened early
on in my experience here at home title family on
the West Coast. Their house title got forged. They lost
hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity. They had to
(30:53):
hire an attorney to go to court. Took them over
two years to finally be heard by a judge. The
judge finally ordered the house back in their name, but
it cost them so much and attorney's fees that they
had to sell the house to pay their attorney. I mean,
that's how crazy it gets. You just don't understand. If
(31:14):
you don't watch it, nobody else is going to do
it for you. And that's what home Title lock does. Listen,
we have the most sophisticated software out there as far
as I'm concerned. We're probably the biggest in the field
as well. But our software will watch your title in
a national database twenty four to seven. There's no day off,
(31:36):
you know, if you go on vacation, we're still going
to watch it for you. And with our million dollar
triple locked protection, if for some reason something touches your title.
Our restoration people, these are great people, by the way.
They're all platinum quality as far as I'm concerned. They
will work with you and we'll spend up to a
million dollars to put that title back in your name.
(31:58):
And that's a comfort that you can't possibly buy do
it yourself. It just doesn't work that way. So if
you go to home title dot com and you sign
up right now, you're going to get a copy of
your title. You'll know that the title is pure, that
it's in the name is supposed to be in, whether
(32:18):
it's your name or in a trust name. That's what
it's all about. And then our software will watch it
and we'll notify you immediately if there's an issue. Now,
if you've done something like a home equity loaner or
something that like, that will notify you that as well.
Anything it touches your title, you're going to hear from
us about it, and then you'll be told if you
(32:40):
don't recognize the document, then you should call us right
away and we will step into it and we'll make
your whole It's really that simple. It's for pennies a day.
I mean, I just when I look at all of
the stuff that's going on now. There's recently an article
by the FBI in Boston about New England and they
cover I think Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut and
(33:04):
Rhode Island, and they have had an outbreak actually of
title theft. They can't tell you exactly how many, quite frankly,
because it's all covered in a general category known as
mortgage theft, right, and so in fact, I talked to
them yesterday. They can't give me an exact number, but
(33:25):
they're telling you it's on the upswing. And this is today,
not last week or last year. It's going on now.
And so people need to understand that as they're going
to bed tonight, they'll sleep better if they know we're
watching their most important asset, their property. We will do
it for pennies a day, and you will be surprised
(33:49):
that you know how comfortable you're going to feel when
you have this little bit of surety in your life.
You know, people years ago I encouraged it and UH
got involved in a situation where there was a family
that their house burned down. They had they had fire coverage,
(34:12):
and the guy next door said, yeah, I said, I
had most of my equity stolen and I and I
said to the guy whose house was still burned, I said,
what would you feel better? Would your coverage company UH
called you the night before and said, look that uh
(34:32):
howell on your stove is going to catch fire and
cause the grease fire and burn your house down. Would
have been nice to get that notice. And the guy
next door, if he had had home tidle locked, he'd
have gotten that notice. We will tell you right away.
If something disturbs your title in any way, shape or form,
we would have been able to stop him from having
that problem. So you know, it's it's one of those
(34:53):
things where it's a degree of the exposure that you
have and your exposure is diminished pretty much zero if
you have home title locked. And even if nothing touches
your title, you know we're there. But if something does
touch your title, that's when it's really special. That's right,
(35:14):
because our restoration people will make you hole again almost overnight.
I mean, they're that good at it. And we do
this all the time. We are the experts, up.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
To a million dollars trying to help a single person
get their home back. That's such an amazing thing. You
said something very profound, Art, and that is that if
you own a home, you have a problem.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You have an Achilles heel.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
If you don't have home title lock, it's not worth
taking the risk. You don't want to be that guy
after the fire, and the fire in your case is
your home theft.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It's such an important thing to remember. Art.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
You've served your country for a very long time, and
I want to thank you for that great service. At
the FAT and also for helping us understand this crime
and get us better protected.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
We sure appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (35:53):
Well, thank you, because you're a good advocate for the homeowner,
not us. I mean, the homeowner needs to listen to you.
Your viewers better pay attention because you're telling them something
that if they don't know, it's about time they've figured
it out, So they should go to home title lock
dot com. Right now, John Solomon sends.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
You that is great. Your wisdom is profound. We love
you a lot. Thanks for joining us today. Good to
have you back on.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
All right, folks, we've heard from a lot today, right
You've heard from an investigative journalist, a guy who.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Used to commit this crime, and the FBI agent used
to sell these crimes. Next, you're going to hear the
story of a real victim of title fraud, someone who
actually went through the process. Find out how home Title
Lock helped her. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
I decided, actually I'm going to put home title Lock
on my mom's home.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Four months or so after.
Speaker 7 (36:50):
She passed, I got a notification from home Title Lock.
It notified me that there had been a change to
the deed that's why we acted so quick. Got it
strained out.
Speaker 8 (37:02):
Let my dad know that somebody has stolen your property.
He advised me that he had taken out home title
Lock about eight months earlier.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
We logged into home.
Speaker 8 (37:10):
Title Lock, he had five alerts. Immediately we contacted them
and within about.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Two weeks indeed was put back in my parents' name.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
A lot of people own property. Home title theft will
happen to somebody. Don't let it be you.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Now, real people talking about what happened when they went
to home title lock and got their home or their
loved ones home protected.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's important.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
If you've got nobly relative, this is a great way
to help protect them. Welcome back to this special edition
of Justin Who's No Noise.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I'm John Solomon.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Tonight, we're partnering with Home Title Lock, one of our
great friends, to put the spotlight on one of the fastest
growing crimes in America. The FBI calls at house stealing.
It's better known as title fraud in the legal profession.
We're about to bring on a real victim of this crime.
Joining us now, Jennifer Washington. Jennifer, thanks for joining us tonight.
Speaker 9 (37:56):
Thank you for having me, all.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Right, this is a really important story because I think
this is a trend line we're seeing in the crime itself.
How did you find out one of your homes wasn't
suddenly legally yours anymore?
Speaker 9 (38:09):
Well, in dealing with the postal mailing, I received mailings
for new ownership, and at first I'm like, okay, no big,
you know, nothing to be alarmed about. But then they continued,
and then I also received notification from a company asking
me to pay for a copy of the new title
(38:33):
in the in the new home ownership. So that's what
alerted me to begin with.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
So before that, there was no sign right, no one
at your door, no notification from the county or police.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
You just get.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Something to the mail saying, hey, congratulates it, and someone
else owns your home, right, correct?
Speaker 9 (38:51):
And I started getting notifications of you know, like the
mailers that say new residents, and then it had names
on it, and I'm like, wait a minute, that's not correct.
So I decided to look further into it.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
My goodness, all right, that moment you get that notification,
I can't imagine you get that gut suspicious feeling you
know something's not right. What are you feeling at that moment,
what's your next step?
Speaker 9 (39:21):
Well, I was caught off guard.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I was.
Speaker 9 (39:24):
I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know if
it was some type of error or if something really
had happened. But then I actually called the County Recorder's
office and they notified me of the change, so that
I went on the website, I also seen it. I
went over to the office and I actually paid for
(39:45):
the title transfer and it was a quick claim deed
that was done. So at that point I asked the
record what type of protections do they have against fraud?
Because this was incorrect, This was never done. It was fraudulent.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And here's the one thing I think most people don't
know that County Recorder even if they want to help you,
they can't help it. They have no legal power to
give you back your house of your title. Right, You're
stuck with them.
Speaker 9 (40:18):
I definitely said it's not They're responsibilit to investigate fraud.
So it was my burden to bear at that point.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
That is a burden, all right, So what do you
do next? I'll walk us through the journey of how
you got your house back Eventually.
Speaker 9 (40:38):
Well, in dealing with the bills. I did notice that
they own title lock, so I called them. I tried to.
I googled them to see what their company was, because
I had no idea what it was. And this all
comes from taking over the bills for the family home
(40:59):
due to the family, so I wasn't for sure what
I was looking at. But then once I called them,
they explained what their company provided and I advised them, hey,
I was dealing with the situation exactly what they protect
consumers from. I had advised them that there had been
(41:22):
a quick claim deed done fraudulently on the family home,
and they gave it to the appropriate department. Took off
from that point on.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Amazing. Boy.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
So you go from first having that feeling in the
pit of your stomach, I just lost my home. Something
bad's happened to me. Then you discover that because of
a relative, you had some of the hometit of lock protection.
That's got to be quite a whipsaw you're going through.
Speaker 9 (41:50):
Well still at that point, I was nervous, Yeah, because
I didn't have any information on the company, and I
knew between all of the existing family members, we did
not have the money to deal with this in a
court setting. I know it would have taken attorneys and
(42:10):
you know time and just months on end to fight
something like this on your own, and.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Then you get the house back. Home title lot comes
to exactly as advertised, right.
Speaker 9 (42:21):
They came back. I had no attorneys fees. They notified
me step by step the process. They hired an attorney.
The attorney took care of it. I couldn't recommend a
better company in this situation.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, so important.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
If you're someone sitting tonight with and you haven't checked
your tide in a long time, you don't have home
title Lock insurance, or you have an elderly person you
care for and you love and they put their whole
life into having that dream home, what would you tell
them to do tonight?
Speaker 9 (42:56):
Well, if you have the time to constantly monitor your title.
But in today's society, you're dealing with the home, the kids,
the family, you know, life's situations. So if you're in
a situation where you're not able to monitor that home
Title Lock can do it for you for a very
(43:19):
small monthly fee.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, and that burglar, that cyber carimer, they're counting on
that you are too busy to out check your title.
That's why home title Lock fills the gap for us.
What a great conversation, Jennifer. Your story is amazing. It's
inspiring for people. You just don't want to wake up
one day and be in the circumstance that you find
yourself in. Great to have you on the show again.
Speaker 9 (43:40):
Thanks for joining us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, I love the conversation so great. All right, folks,
what an amazing conversation. Someone who really went through it,
real thing, didn't know they even had the insurance protection,
but they began.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
But that's what home Title Lock does you.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All right, We're gonna take one more break out, one
more conversation to go. But before you do that, get
a little bit of homework asignment for you. Go to
home title lock dot com and get that peace of
mind with a free title history report in thirty days
of free protection. Now do you go to hometitle lock
dot com. You're gonna use a very special promo code
we have JTN thirty. You can also put your camera
at that QR code that'll get you going. But one
more time, Home title lock dot Com promo code JTN
(44:16):
thirty go do it during the commercial break. Don't give
yourself a moment more torment. We'll be right back after
these messages. Welcome back to America. Just a few more
minutes left before we head into the weekend. You've heard
some testimonies about home title lock and how it can
protect your home from the crime of home title theft.
(44:37):
And who better to talk more about that than the
title theft education expert from Home Title Lotch. She's one
of our good friends, Natalie Domingez.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Natalie, Welcome back.
Speaker 10 (44:47):
Hi John. Always great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
We love this conversation because I know somewhere tonight someone's
going to get protected and it's going to make a difference.
And that's why we do this special It's very exciting
for us. I think one of the things that I'm
struck by and now a lot of people, I think
don't realize if you don't have this protection, you don't
have this service, and your home.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Is suddenly pulled out from undon.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Your equity is taken, it is really difficult to go
back and do it. We're talking months and maybe even years.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Correct.
Speaker 10 (45:15):
Absolutely, I feel like a majority of the stories. You know,
part of my job is to make sure that I'm
up to date with the news. We know what's going on,
we know what to look for protect against almost every
story I see. You know, restoration can take years versus months, right,
and that's why we do what we do at Home
Title loc We have a network of legal experts around
the country. Every state, every municipality has different rules and
(45:39):
laws and ways that you go about handling restoration. And
every case can be so different. Right. It can be
just someone steals your title. It can be that they
sold the home that they have already gone through wire transfers,
that the bank is coming after the homeowner. I mean,
we've even seen homeowners lose their homes to the bank
because the bank as frankly better lawyers. And it's very,
(46:02):
very sad. So that's why we do what we do.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Boy, it's disheartening to hear.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
We have a repertoire of things that we do already
to protect our home. We got the home security system,
you got your fire and prevention loss insurance. You've got
your hurricane insurance if you live in Florida, earthquake insurance
if you live in California. A lot of people don't realize,
and I think they thought maybe when I bought my
title insurance. I bought my house, I'm protected. But without that,
(46:29):
this crime is completely unprotected. Right Without home titleock, you
don't really have a way of protecting yourself unless you
get to call the county clerk every single day, right.
Speaker 10 (46:39):
Yeah, absolutely, And I think that's the hard part about
the misconception about title insurance, right, And we're not insurance.
We aren't going to just you know, throw some money
at you and say, okay, you're on your own. The
best part about our system, in my personal opinion, is
our restoration. We are the propriet proprietary you know, makers
of the software, but we really are the only company
(47:00):
that does restoration. We are with a homeowner every step
of the way, taking care of it for them, getting
the home back in their name, fighting the good fight
so that the homeowner isn't on their own, because if
they are on their own, you know, they're spending their
money on legal fees. We've seen new stories where people
can't even do that because they can't afford the legal fees.
You know, they're going through years and years of litigation
(47:20):
with their own personal life going on, They're getting sued
by other companies and just it's this really scary thing
of being on your own, especially if you are more vulnerable.
If you're an elderly, you know, person living on your own,
you don't have people to fight for you, and a caretaker,
you know, takes advantage of you if you just don't
have family or friends to count on. We want to
(47:42):
make sure that people are not on their own. And
one of the most important things too about our monitoring
system is we monitor the property, not the person. You know,
for things like security cameras, you got eyes on the home,
for alarm systems. You know, you're watching to see if
someone's going to try to break into your home. No
one's watching their title. No one's going down to the
county office once a week and looking to make sure
(48:04):
their title is still there. And some counties in across
the country do have their own kind of monitoring systems,
but it's less than ten percent of the United States.
Not every county, not every town has one. We monitor
everyone and anyone that is a property right to make
sure that they are taken care of land home.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Today, Matt Cox brought something in that I had heard before.
But you know, we're all a lot more people renting
out their home. Part of the year, maybe an Airbnb
or vrbo. Those people are even more vulnerable. You've got
these all covered, don't you.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (48:39):
Absolutely, if you are a property, if not. If you
are a property, if you have a property, we monitor
the property. Whether it's vacant land, whether you have multiple
residences on the property, whether it's under a trust and
not under your name. It doesn't matter. If it's a
property and it has a personal number, we can monitor.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
So very important. And time to detection. That's another thing
we heard from Art.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
The quicker you detected, the quicker you get this back.
That's the key to what you guys do. You're on
top of it. The second that notification occurs, we're ready
in the protection business.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
That's so important.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Natal, I want to thank you for the partnership, all
the great people you make available for these conversations, yourself included.
This is a really important education process. We're so lucky
to have this partnership with hometitle lock. One more time, folks,
go to hometitle lock before we start your weekend home
title lock dot com and you use the promo code
JTN thirty. You're going to get a free look at
your title history reports. You can see if your title
(49:32):
is in your name. When you sign up, you also
receive a free extended thirty day trial.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Of a million dollar triple lock protection.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
That's a great deal, but check it out twenty four
to seven monitoring, instant alerts, and if fraud ever happens,
THEIRS US based experts at hometitl lock are going to
spend up a million bucks. You get the fraud fixed
and get your home back in the end. That's important.
Don't wait, get the peace of mind userve hometitle.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Lock dot com promo code JTN thirty. With that, I'm
going to send you
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Off into the week, God blessed, we'll see end money
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