When selling a home, have an attorney check all contract or unusual sales arrangements. All property sales should go through normal escrow procedures before the property changes hands. This scheme, where the con artist calls representative of the consumer's bank, has been around for years. The money is never redeposited, the bank has no investigation and the con artist is nowhere to be found. Investment Schemes Many investment schemes are advertised through newspapers and magazines and usually promise very high interest rates with very low risk.
Common scams involve real estate holdings, high risk oil or gas leases, or gemstones.
When the scheme collapses, investors find out that the property was worth only a fraction of the amount claimed, and is insufficient to repay the investments it supposedly secured. In these types of scams, most investors lose all their money. There are several common frauds which promise thousands of dollars for in-home work such as stuffing envelopes, making craft items, or learning the secret of making money. Few of these offers are legitimate. They are designed to appeal to people on fixed incomes who want to make extra money while working from their home.