One of our title agents received this puzzling request on a Thursday. A guy called the office purporting to be a borrower of a transaction they recently closed and asked for post–closing contact information for his closer. He then emailed the following message to the closer:

This was the settlement agent's response:

Fortunately the closer is very wise and protects customers' information dearly. She questioned the email address it was sent from. She then reached out to the REAL borrower to confirm his request. The borrower was unaware of any request for these documents from him or his wife.

This seems to be a new scam, in which identity thieves can obtain the title company's information from the land records, pretend to be the borrower, call the title company and request documents. A lot of new procedures have been set in place in regards to the privacy and protection of customer information, but something tells me, someone might fall victim if they are not alert…

Next, one of our offices reports they had just received a call from "John Doe" looking for a copy of his loan documents. The lucky person who answered the phone asked when he purchased the property. The caller said he did not know, "somewhere around the 29th or 30th of last month."

Our office personnel asked which settlement agent closed his transaction. He did not know what a "settlement agent" was but said he closed with Fidelity. She told him to call his lender and he hung up on her. His number came across the phone screen as anonymous.

Make sure you do not provide private information or documents to an unknown caller or in response to an unknown email address. If you receive a phone call from an unknown caller or an email from a different email address, ALWAYS call the customer at the phone number you have on file to confirm the request before providing documents or information.