Tweet
HOUSES are being mortgaged without their owners' knowledge, as audacious identity thieves pocket the money and leave the home owners in debt.
Police are urging lenders to tighten their security checks to avoid more homes being mortgaged by cyber-crims who steal identity details to take out loans against paid-off houses.
Australia's longest-serving fraud investigator, NSW Police Detective Superintendent Col Dyson, said the convenience of online and telephone credit applications exposed home owners to the risk strangers could use their house as collateral, The Australian reports.
"If someone owns their house outright, and no one ever checks the title, it's relatively easy for a criminal group, if they get enough personal financial information, to acquire a loan against the house, using the house as security and keeping the proceeds," he said after addressing an identity crime symposium on the Gold Coast yesterday.
"(The incidence) is growing. With mortgage fraud, the returns are quite lucrative.
"They can get $1 million if they have the audacity to do it."
Superintendent Dyson said that in NSW alone, police were investigating more than 100 cases of false mortgages taken out against commercial properties and houses. Victims became aware only when a bank wrote to them demanding they make an overdue repayment.
DO you know more? Email us below.
Superintendent Dyson said banks should impose more stringent identity checks, but home owners needed to safeguard personal information such as birth dates, income and mothers' maiden names.
"Criminals can acquire that information by stealing mail, or by stealing bank statements from garbage bins," he said.
"People should really be careful what they tell people in (online) chat rooms because they really don't know who they're dealing with."
Superintendent Dyson said all the offenders were "complete strangers", who had managed to glean enough personal details from their victims to obtain a loan.
"The owner is under no jeopardy of losing the house, because it is an invalid contract," he said. "There certainly should be an independent process of verifying that the owner of the house is the person making the application.
"A simple knock on the front door can sometimes save a lot of heartache and loss of money."
Jenny
Source
Police are urging lenders to tighten their security checks to avoid more homes being mortgaged by cyber-crims who steal identity details to take out loans against paid-off houses.
Australia's longest-serving fraud investigator, NSW Police Detective Superintendent Col Dyson, said the convenience of online and telephone credit applications exposed home owners to the risk strangers could use their house as collateral, The Australian reports.
"If someone owns their house outright, and no one ever checks the title, it's relatively easy for a criminal group, if they get enough personal financial information, to acquire a loan against the house, using the house as security and keeping the proceeds," he said after addressing an identity crime symposium on the Gold Coast yesterday.
"(The incidence) is growing. With mortgage fraud, the returns are quite lucrative.
"They can get $1 million if they have the audacity to do it."
Superintendent Dyson said that in NSW alone, police were investigating more than 100 cases of false mortgages taken out against commercial properties and houses. Victims became aware only when a bank wrote to them demanding they make an overdue repayment.
DO you know more? Email us below.
Superintendent Dyson said banks should impose more stringent identity checks, but home owners needed to safeguard personal information such as birth dates, income and mothers' maiden names.
"Criminals can acquire that information by stealing mail, or by stealing bank statements from garbage bins," he said.
"People should really be careful what they tell people in (online) chat rooms because they really don't know who they're dealing with."
Superintendent Dyson said all the offenders were "complete strangers", who had managed to glean enough personal details from their victims to obtain a loan.
"The owner is under no jeopardy of losing the house, because it is an invalid contract," he said. "There certainly should be an independent process of verifying that the owner of the house is the person making the application.
"A simple knock on the front door can sometimes save a lot of heartache and loss of money."
Jenny
Source
Comment