Paris Police has received information that a new scam has struck the Paris area.
Several persons who have recently made property purchases and have filed a title deed through the County Clerk, have been receiving a letter in the mail from a business identifying themselves as Record Transfer Services out of California. The letter will be a bill for a “final filing fee” of $83.00 for the property purchase.
The letter will have the correct property and property owner information in it, making it look official. The letter will contain a self-addressed, postage paid envelope to send the payment, and instructions and a number to call to make a payment by phone. After speaking with a representative of the Lamar County Appraisal District, they advised that they have received numerous questions about this and evidentially several persons have received like or similar letters.
According to the representative, the filing fee for a property title deed is $10.00 and is paid at the County Clerk’s office at the Lamar County Court House, nowhere else. The representative said that the scammers can obtain the property owner and property ID information from the Lamar County web site and this is what they are using to target potential victims.
The Lamar County Appraisal Office also advised that they had been made aware that some of their customers are dealing with a possible property tax fraud. Rather than being a straight up theft type scam, this is a little different. According to the representative, there is a company that will contact property owners, offering to pay their property taxes for them and then let them pay out the taxes to the company. Catch is that the company is then charging the property owner up to triple the amount of the taxes that were originally owed, making it more of a 300% interest loan catching the victim unaware of the inflated cost and charges through that company.
If you have any questions as to the legitimacy of any type of money transactions that contacts you, by either telephone, mail or e-mail, please be diligent in your research before you send any money.