Scam Likely? You Know Them Too? - Anthony's Story

Anthony’s an experienced real estate investor...like 50 years experienced. He’s an “old school” guy, like a dad, or uncle: assertive and wears his heart on his sleeve. He loves attention and helping people. If you have a question about something, he goes right into, “OK, here’s what you gotta do…”

He wanted to sell one of his out of state homes...so he met with an agent on a referral. Then a few days later is when the calls started coming in…

Call...after call…
...after call…
...after call…
...after…
...call.

He had to shut his phone off during sleeping hours because he was getting calls from different time zones about selling his house. But why were people, and robots, calling him directly...rather than his agent? And why on his cell?

One evening, Anthony’s family was over, his son and his wife both got calls when the family was together for dinner. This sparked a lively conversation. Turns out, Anthony’s sons, and their wives, had been receiving these calls to sell the house for months, both on personal and home phones.

In our first conversation, I personally witnessed Anthony curse out 2 callers. He held up his cell phone and said, “See? It doesn’t stop.” Sometimes, Anthony can be a bit fear-driven. He can’t imagine having to change his phone number. It’s like part of his identity. He feels important and never hesitates to share his information with everyone...even if it should be kept more private.
For a short while, he felt great with so many people calling him because it meant more prospects to buy the house, with callers competing for the high demand home. However, after weeks, then a couple months, he got fed up. His family was a bit disappointed as well since their information ended up on the call list. It wasn’t just real estate agents anymore. It was lenders, home insurance agents, house cleaning companies, appraisal companies...you get the idea.

When I first met Anthony, I really admired his long career in real estate investing. We shared some stories, and agreed the Internet can be a great tool to help investors. Together, we also realized how careless the real estate agent was with his personal info, not being aware that their agency sold customers’ information, and also actively solicited relatives using publicly available information. They were just doing their job and innocently entered his info into the database, not knowing where it would end up.

After a bit of work with Anthony, we discovered the real estate agent entered Anthony’s info into the company database. This company also frequently switched marketing companies, which explains why so many different businesses called. After we worked together focusing on the family’s publicly available information, Anthony and his family saw how a few changes in habits, and some awareness can keep their phones, and mailboxes, from blowing up with nonsense.

Anthony’s learned a great lesson about real estate investing and privacy. When we removed the family’s publicly available information, they felt better knowing they won’t receive unwanted attention. They also felt better knowing it would be more difficult to find out their personal details. Anthony now brags a bit about how he “disappeared.” He likes to challenge people to “Google” him and see what they can find.
We also set up a great system to take calls, without giving up his treasured phone number. Today, it’s rare, when he gets a spam caller, and using what he’s learned, attacks it immediately. He has a personalized, and easy system to give out a required phone number to anyone in his network involving a real estate deal, contractor work or property management.

What Anthony and his family learned firsthand is how unscrupulous and relentless some people can be. They saw how the Internet today is NOT designed to protect your privacy. Even though the callers were just trying to get more customers, it could have easily been someone with malicious intent. Because the Internet today is designed to collect your info and sell it, or use that info to manipulate you, you have to take responsibility yourself.

Names have been changed to protect privacy.