From Bankrate.com - Five tips on how to avoid identity theft

Five tips on how to avoid identity theft. We’ve had it happen to us and can testify how it affects your life.

“Everyone makes mistakes. After all, it's only human to goof up now and then. But if you want to protect yourself from identity theft and other financial scams, you need to play it safe, be smart and avoid simple mistakes that can expose your financial data and identity to fraudsters.”

Here are the five tips:

1. “Never carry a Social Security card, whether it's your own or your spouse's, parent's, child's or other family member's, in your wallet.”

While there’s no doubt you'll need your SS number to apply for a job, get a mortgage “most people don't need to give out their Social Security number on a day-to-day basis.”

"Another tip: Don't write a Social Security number on a scrap of paper and carry that in your wallet instead of a Social Security card. If your wallet is lost or stolen, a person of criminal intent can easily guess what those nine digits are.”

2. Don’t yak on a cell phone in public.

“Elevators, public streets, restaurants, airport terminals -- these are but a few of the public places where Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego, says a private conversation on a cell phone can be easily overheard by someone who can memorize or write down any financial information that's disclosed.”

3. Be wary of Internet friends.

“[N]ot all of the people you may encounter are who they say they are. Some of them are scammers on the prowl for information.”

"You share where you were born and when you were born, now I know where to get your birth certificate," Foley says. "I can take that and get a duplicate Social Security card and with that I can get a driver's license and with that I can get a passport and with that I can travel anywhere and be you as much as I want."

4. Keep financial information off of your resume.

Posting your resume on line?

“Never put your Social Security number, birth date, place of birth or other financial information on your resume. Be wary of scams that use e-mail messages -- "We loved your resume, and we need your Social Security number to do a background check so we can hire you," is one example -- to prey on unemployed people.”

5. Pass up that free offer in exchange for personal information.

"Be suspicious of offers that seem too good to be true, regardless of how or where they're presented. That free T-shirt may be a lure to entice you to fill out an application for a credit card that doesn't exist. Once you complete the application and get the T-shirt, those data are out of your control.”

You can read the full article on Bankrate.com.

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From the Christian Science Monitory - Homebuyer tax credit: the scam of the century?

Posted on the Christian Science Monitor Paper Economy blogsite by SoldAtTheTop, worth publishing in full:


The Realtors backed it… the home builders backed it… the mortgage bankers backed it… virtually anyone with an financial interest in residential real estate transactions backed the Homebuyer Tax Credit (and it’s expanded extension) and now that the program is finally complete and a whole host of indicators (NAHB builder sentiment, pending home sales, existing home sales, home prices, etc.) suggest that the its effects were at best temporary, we can see fairly clearly that this policy was a scam of epic proportions benefiting few and costing many.

Reports indicate that the total credit cost could exceed $20 billion and while the cost of administration and vetting of claims is yet to be determined, it can safely be assumed to have been very costly, so what did we get for our Keynesian tax stimulus efforts?

First, it’s important to recall that early on in the program implementation it was reported that there was a massive number of fraudulently filed claims with thousands coming from inmates, children and tax preparers supposedly acting without the knowledge of filers that did not purchase homes.

Needless to say, the IRS has been busy with audits, so much so that as of June they blocked or froze over a billion dollars of claim payments.

As for properly filed claims, many of the homes purchased with the credit have already declined in value in excess of the credit’s maximum $8000 benefit (i.e. a mere 2.5% decline on a $350,000 home) leaving many unwitting home “buyers” in the cruel predicament of sinking in a quicksand of asset price deflation for simply having jumped for a slight nibble of the government’s meager tax carrot.

Finally, in trying to fully understand why the government undertook such a useless and poorly calculated program, it’s important to recognize those who truly walk away from this policy in better standing.

Realtors, home builders and mortgage bankers…. some of the most notable culprits of the housing bubble years… all walk away cleanly skimming the proceeds coming from the transactions of an estimated 2 million temporarily stimulated home purchases.

It should come as no surprise that these were the very same industry groups that worked tirelessly lobbying to enact this failed policy… it was a simple exchange… your tax dollars to their wallets.

While Washington elites likely continue to celebrate the “success” of this ludicrous policy, those opposed can at least draw some consolation from the recent refusal of NJ governor Christie’s to enact a similar program possibly indicating that public sentiment has turned against such overtly illogical and wasteful government efforts.

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Stephen M. Flatow

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Jersey City, NJ 07306

Tel 201-656-9220 - Fax 201-656-4506

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Flood insurance program a mess

How would you like to live in home that is prone to flooding? How would you like to have it be “flooded 34 times since 1978?” Well, there is such a home, and there are more like it.

“In Wilkinson County, Miss., a home has been flooded 34 times since 1978.

“Extraordinary as the damage may be, even more extraordinary is that an insurer has paid claims every time, required no flood proofing, never raised premiums after a claim and vowed to continue insuring the house. Forever.

“The home's value is $69,900. Yet the total insurance payments are nearly 10 times that: $663,000.

“It's no surprise that the insurer faces huge financial problems.

“The insurer? The federal government.”

Billions of dollars have been paid to the owners of similar homes across the country and there is no end in sight.

Other insurers for casualties and liability are certain that the premiums collected exceed the cost of claims. But not with the federal government in charge.

“Instead it's running deeply in the red. A major reason, a USA TODAY review finds, is that the program has paid people to rebuild over and over in the nation's worst flood zones while also discounting insurance rates by up to $1 billion a year for flood-prone properties.”

In New Jersey, claim histories are not so great either.

As reported in the Asbury Park Press,

“For every dollar the National Flood Insurance Program has doled out since 1978 to repair flooded homes and businesses in New Jersey, 68 cents has been spent to repair properties that have been flooded more than once. Nearly one in seven of those properties is in Monmouth or Ocean counties.”

So, what do you think should be done? It seems that it makes sense that homes that are repeatedly subjected to floods are built where they shouldn’t be. Rather than continuing to pay claims, maybe the homeowners should be bought-out.

What do you think?

Read the entire USA Today report here.

For your next title order or

if you have questions about what you see here, contact

Stephen M. Flatow

Vested Title Inc.

648 Newark Avenue, P.O. Box 6453,

Jersey City, NJ 07306

Tel 201-656-9220 - Fax 201-656-4506

E-mail vti@vested.com - www.vested.com

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New Jersey property owners abused by tax abatements

Two columns in the Asbury Park Press this past week highlight the use of real estate tax abatements to attract development.  Both columns point out that ordinary tax payers take a beating when abatements are granted because school taxes are impacted when abatements are granted.

The first column is Sunday’s editorial.

"A report issued last week by the state Comptroller's Office spotlighted the practice of municipalities from Hoboken to Millville giving out tax breaks involving "hundreds of millions of dollars" on property worth billions of dollars statewide.”

 “It also recommended a number of steps the state should take to ensure the tax breaks are benefiting the average citizen, not developers and their political friends.”

School districts are hurt the most when abatements are given since the property being developed does not pay school taxes.  Thus, in the words of the editorial,

 “[W]hen a developer gets a huge tax break, it does not mean a municipality's tax demands are correspondingly reduced. Other property taxpayers make up the difference. That's not fair.”

Columnist Bob Ingle also goes after tax abatements.  Picking up the editorial’s theme, he writes,

“Abatements can make the situation worse for the already over-burdened property tax payers. Consider: A municipality gives an abatement to a widget factory which hires 30 people. The town arranges for payments in lieu of taxes. School districts receive no part of those payments, but the 30 workers bring an additional 90 kids to the school district, which has to expand at additional costs to the property tax payers and state aid from Trenton.”

How about this case?

“In South Jersey, Gloucester Township in a six-month period handed out three short-term abatements to Wawa stories expanding to Super Wawas. The three are within two to four miles of each other. Why should property tax payers have to underwrite the expansion of Wawa stores? The company is big and wealthy and probably would have expanded the stores anyway.”

Well, this does seem unfair.  What do you think?

For your next title order or

if you have questions about what you see here, contact

Stephen M. Flatow

Vested Title Inc.

648 Newark Avenue, P.O. Box 6453,

Jersey City, NJ 07306

Tel 201-656-9220 - Fax 201-656-4506

E-mail vti AT vested.com - www.vested.com

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Mortgage program a bust with 50% dropout rate?

We have previously written about the Obama Administration’s program to encourage mortgage modifications.  Well, the news is in and it’s not good.

According to the Associated Press,

“Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration's flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

“The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday's report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say.”

 “Approximately 630,000 people who had tried to get their monthly mortgage payments lowered through the government program have been cut loose through July, according to the Treasury report. That's about 48 percent of  those who had enrolled since March 2009. And it is up from more than 40 percent through June.”

 Who is to blame?

“Many borrowers have complained that the government program is a bureaucratic nightmare. They say banks often lose their documents and then claim borrowers did not send back the necessary paperwork.

“The banking industry said borrowers weren't sending back their paperwork. They also have accused the Obama administration of initially pressuring them to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income. When banks later moved to collect the information, many troubled homeowners were disqualified or dropped out.”

 One thing is clear—we are facing more foreclosures.

Read the full report.

 

For your next title order or 

if you have questions about what you see here, contact 

Stephen M. Flatow 

Vested Title Inc. 

648 Newark Avenue, P.O. Box 6453, 

Jersey City, NJ 07306 

Tel 201-656-9220 - Fax 201-656-4506 

E-mail vti@vested.com - www.vested.com

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