ArcaMax

Q: We bought a new home from the developer several years ago. Part of the development was to become a park, by contract. However there was an influx of families to the region, and the developer was trying to convince the city/county that the tax base would be better served by making a few walking trails with wooden exercise stations, and turning the unfinished park into high-density apartment buildings.

Every resident got an official-looking questionnaire, demanding information from us. We quickly realized that the poll was slanted like the ones used by political parties on any side. It threatened fines if we didn't complete it and a diminished police and fire response if the answers weren't "right."

It turned out that the developer had been behind the poll and was planning to use the poll to convince the city that the developer had not promised the park. We shut it down, and we got the park, only five years late!

I want you to warn your readers that any official-looking mailing needs to be verified before it's filled out and sent in. Sometimes letters are legit, but sometimes they're a scam. It's usually not hard to find out which, but it does take some due diligence and a keen eye.

A: You are entirely correct. It is so easy to make fake documents that are nearly or exactly identical to the real thing these days. And, videos, too.

In fact, Sam was working on a deal recently where the IRS had placed a lien on a property. The client received a letter in the mail advising them that the client was about to lose the property through an enforcement action, and told them to pay up.

In reality, the letter was a scam, sent from a company or someone looking to prey on people that are going through difficult times. The letter looked official enough, but when you looked closely at it, it didn’t say that it was from the United States Department of the Treasury or from the Internal Revenue Service. It did have a toll free number to call, but when you did a search online for that number, the reports show that the number was associated with a scam.

The letter also had codes and other official looking information but that information was made up. Several people looked at that letter and given the recent lien filing, took the letter to be legitimate. But it wasn’t. The amount that was supposed to be due: More than $300,000.

It’s great that you and your neighbors worked together to figure out that the survey wasn’t in your best interests nor were you required to complete it. As various government entities warn, if you get unsolicited mail, email or phone calls, beware. In particular when the communication wants you to act fast, threatens you or gives the impression that you will lose something if you don’t act now.

It’s become incumbent on each of us to make sure we’re protected from cyberscams. If you do get an email, never click on the links in the email. Instead, open a separate tab and log into whatever account you have using that new tab. Check the sender's email to make sure it comes from the source you think. If you get an email from your bank, the email address from the sender should match the name of your bank as you have seen before.

In most email systems, you can either see the sender’s name and email address or hover over the name to see the full email address for the sender. If the name and email address don’t match, you may have a person trying to impersonate someone or a company you know to get something from you that they should not.

The IRS lien we talked about above was filed with the local office that handles real estate filings and recordings. That meant that the information that the IRS notification filed was available for anyone to see. Any scam artist can pull up the information from the form that is recorded and send out letters to people who have liens filed against them by the IRS.

Likewise, when people purchase a home and the lender files a mortgage as part of the home buying process, the homeowner’s name, address, loan amount, lender name and other loan terms are available for everyone to see. A scam artist can then create a pretty good letter to the homeowner letting them know that their loan has been sold and to send future loan payments to a new lender at a new address.

So, always make sure you double check with your current lender any change of information or where payments must be sent. Sam advises his clients to set up auto debit with their lenders as soon as they can. This allows the homeowner to have the lender deduct the amount owed on the loan on a monthly basis and avoids the issue of lost checks or delayed checks that go through the mail.

It also means that if the lender sells the loan, the homeowner will need to go through the same process to set up automatic payments to the lender going forward. When a lender makes a change, you should be able to log into your account to see correspondence from the lender alerting you to any change in the account. You may get the information by mail as well, but you can double check and confirm the change before sending money out.

To stay extra safe, make sure you use extremely strong passwords with upper and lower case letters, numbers, and a special character or two.

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(Ilyce Glink is the author of “100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask” (4th Edition). She is also the CEO of Best Money Moves, a financial wellness technology company. Samuel J. Tamkin is a Chicago-based real estate attorney. Contact Ilyce and Sam through her website, ThinkGlink.com.)

©2025 Ilyce R. Glink and Samuel J. Tamkin. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.