Fake listings target a lot for a planned return to sunshine
About 18 months ago, when Lee Cohen got an automatic notification from a real estate website that his Marfa property was for sale, he thought it was odd. “I’m signed up to get alerts about the property, mostly because I was just kind of curious about what’s being sold around it and the value of it,” he said.
Cohen, who is living in Berlin, said he “hopped out of bed” and called the listing agent—Marfa Realty—and told them, “It’s definitely not for sale. I don’t know what’s going on. And they immediately called me back, and they immediately pulled it down and were super apologetic and super helpful.”
The listing for Cohen’s Antelope Hills lot was, of course, a scam intended for someone to try to impersonate him and get some kind of traction for a remote sale and transfer of money. The scam is nothing new and has been reportedly attempted all across the United States in the past few years. But Marfa Realty’s Kathleen Walstrom said it’s the first time she’s seen it attempted in the area. “It’s new for Marfa, and I don’t know the sophistication of scammers, so I don’t know if anything can go through without getting caught, but even IDs can be faked,” she said.
Walstrom believes it would be extremely difficult to get a sale process through a title company with someone impersonating the owner, but she said it has obviously happened elsewhere, and it’s a good heads up to area property owners to be on the lookout for potential scams. National news reporting shows that fake IDs and corrupted notaries can make it work.
Cohen said he thinks it’s possible that this person was going after earnest money, which a buyer puts down when starting a sale contract to reserve the property from being sold to someone else. That amount varies, usually 1% to 3% of the sale price. Although that money is held by an escrow agent, a shady or fake agent could be involved in the theft.
Cohen said the scammer tried the same tactic again a few weeks ago with an Alpine real estate agent. Marfa Realty spotted the listing, alerted the agent, and they took it down. He said the person mined public information about him and the property to try to show the agents he was Lee Cohen. The FBI was alerted to the attempts, he said.
The scammer in Cohen’s case left a phone number. “I called him and told him, ‘You got to stop trying to sell my property,’” Cohen said. “And he said, ‘Who is this?’ And I said, ‘You know who it is! You’re trying to impersonate me, and I called the FBI,’ and he hung up … unless he didn’t know who it was, because he’s doing it on multiple properties and multiple people.”
Walstrom said one red flag is sellers not willing to meet in person, or if they are far away, not willing to jump on a video call. Cohen suggested that property owners sign up on Redfin or other real estate websites that provide notifications on changes in property status, and, if a scam is attempted, alert the area title companies and realtors.
Cohen, who used to live in Marfa and work with Ballroom Marfa on music events, said he dreams of returning here someday. “I have no cause to sell it. In a perfect world, I’m 65 years old, I come back to Marfa and put a house on it and get some sunshine after living in darkness for the last 25 years. I lived in Portland and Scotland, and now I live in Berlin, and I’m like, I just want to see the sun.”