Unfortunately, scammers continue to become craftier in obtaining personal information. One scam that is gaining traction is mortgage scams, where the bad actors are looking into mortgages, see the equity line of credit and basically take over a property, which many times is not discovered until a homeowner goes to sell their house. With many personal information items being obtained by the bad actors on open online sources, Monmouth Police Department Investigator Josh Kramer shares how to request for yours to be removed:
“They obtain information and all the information, unfortunately, is out there on open source research on the internet. They will find your residence, they can see what your home is valued at, and then start doing some research to see how long you have lived there. Obviously, the longer you have lived there, the more equity there is in the home. There are websites out there that can monitor that. You can go to the websites and request that your information be removed from them. That is part of the law. Usually, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom and it is in the little box down at the bottom, but they have to offer that and they do have to remove your information from the websites.”
Investigator Kramer also advises checking your credit score regularly to monitor accounts.
