Cheryl Osborne, a closer for North American Title in Cape Coral, Florida, received a sale transaction for vacant land. The transaction was referred to North American Title by a real estate agent who admitted negotiating the listing agreement completely by email without ever meeting the property owners.

Throughout the transaction, Cheryl attempted to reach the purported property owners by telephone, but was only successful in receiving responses via email. The closing documents were emailed to the purported owner who signed and returned them through an international courier.

When Cheryl received the package she noticed the documents were not notarized by an embassy representative as she had requested. Instead, they were notarized by someone with the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the United Kingdom.

The closing documents were completed with new contact phone numbers for the seller, so Cheryl tried calling, but none of them were working numbers — even the phone number for the notary was a non–working number! Cheryl tried contacting the Faculty Office to obtain better contact information for the notary. The Faculty Office confirmed no notary by that name was registered with their service.

With so many red flag warnings of a possible fraudulent seller Cheryl decided to get her branch manager, Nicole Brunges, involved. Together they reviewed the disbursement instructions the owner had sent back with her closing documents.

The disbursement instructions and all other correspondence received so far had indicated the owner lived in the United Kingdom. They confirmed the address on file with the tax collector indicated the seller was in fact located in the United Kingdom, but the address on the closing documents was a different address.

Then they noticed the wire instructions for the sale proceeds were directed to a bank in Indonesia with another person's name as the account holder. They emailed the owner to inquire why the funds were being directed to an account in Indonesia, and requested a time they could call and speak to her by phone.

The purported owner gave a time they could call, but the time stated had already passed and the owner indicated she was leaving for Asia. The property owner reiterated all the same banking information as contained in the disbursement instructions, giving no reason why the funds were being wired to Indonesia and not to a bank in the United Kingdom.

Cheryl and Nicole decided not to proceed with the transaction without contacting their manager. The manager suggested sending a notice to the current address on the tax roll requesting confirmation from the record owner that she, in fact, signed the closing documents. They sent a letter via overnight delivery to the property owner's address.

Lo and behold, the real property owner called the next day and confirmed she was not selling her property in Florida. The notice included a copy of the passport picture returned with the signed closing documents. She confirmed the picture was not hers.

The real property owner was so gracious and appreciative North American Title Company had reached out to her to confirm her identity. They saved her from losing record title to her land valued at twice the amount shown on the sales contract.

For their efforts Cheryl Osborne and Nicole Brunges split the $1,500 Fraud Insights reward and both received letters of recognition on behalf of the Company.