A local man says he was stunned when he learned that scammers tried to refinance his home in Highland Creek.
Samuel Helmick says he wasn’t looking to refinance. “Oh, absolutely not. No,” he told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke.
But someone got his personal information, including his driver’s license, and applied for refinancing in his name.
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Helmick already paid off his home. So, this was what’s called a “cash-out” refinance. And that’s key because, in a “cash-out” refi, the money goes to the homeowner instead of his or her old lender. “Probably one of the reasons that may have made him interested in us,” he said.
In this case, the scammer would have gotten away with almost $450,000.
But not so fast.
The lawyer handling this refinance, Charlie Hands III, and his paralegal Devera Alston, picked up on some red flags. Plus, Hands says he went to a conference in the fall and this kind of fraud came up. The message at the conference was always to confirm the homeowner’s identity face to face.