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The president of a title company in south Florida is warning the real estate industry after would-be scammers nearly carried out the fraudulent sale of a piece of land using a video created by artificial intelligence to try to carry out the foiled plot.
A 19-year-old investor looking to buy a piece of land in Hallandale Beach as his first deal offered slightly below asking price if the seller would accept cash. The alleged seller accepted.
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When the buyer and his father, a real estate broker, worked to confirm the identity of the seller, they received photos of apparent identification that appeared to match property records and confirm the seller’s identity.
The alleged seller claimed she was deaf and lived out of state, so communication before closing occurred in writing. However, Florida Title and Trust, which was set to handle the closing, required the seller to appear on a video call before the deal could be completed.
When the parties joined the call, the alleged seller appeared to match her photos. But something about the elderly seller seemed off, and she wasn’t responding to any commands.
“It shocked me to see a video that was clearly not a person,” Lauren Albrecht, president of Florida Title and Trust, told Local 10 News.
“I did suspect fraud,” Albrecht told the news outlet. “And generally, we ask for a proof of life when we think there is a person impersonating a seller, and generally when we do that, people disappear.”
The property’s previous owner died and a relative has been paying property taxes on the land, which isn’t for sale, the outlet reported.
The Broward County Property Appraiser’s office has a team of 10 people working on crime prevention and has made 60 arrests so far this year, according to Local 10 News.
“I caught it,” Albrecht told WSVN. “But that doesn’t stop them from going to another Realtor or another title company and trying it with somebody else.”
