Big Booger
September 28th, 2006, 12:05 PM
An elderly woman from the East Coast roams the Arizona desert in search of her land. She's looking for a tidy lot in a subdivision and instead finds an arid wasteland in the middle of nowhere. She gets lost, runs out of gas and water and has to be rescued by a rancher.
She had bought the land on the Internet, sight unseen, according to Mary Utley, spokeswoman with the Arizona Department of Real Estate.
The Internet is reviving a grand old American tradition: land scams. Thousands of lots in phantom subdivisions that were sold decades ago to people who hoped to build retirement homes in warm states are reappearing on online sites such as the Internet giant eBay.
The new wave of land scams has the potential to snooker millions more around the world because of the Internet's broad and instantaneous reach.
Many of the lots being sold have never been developed because they are on swampland in Florida or isolated desert ranchland in Texas and Arizona. There is no road access, water or power. The land might be developed someday, but county officials who are busy processing a surge in deed transfers are skeptical.
"If someone does buy one of these parcels thinking they're going to build their dream home on it now, that's really a problem," says Bart Medley, attorney for Texas' Jeff Davis County.
Land scams are surfacing in:
Read the rest! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060927/tc_usatoday/oldfashionedlandscamsgohightech)
I have seen these "great land deals" on ebay. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And never buy land sight unseen!
She had bought the land on the Internet, sight unseen, according to Mary Utley, spokeswoman with the Arizona Department of Real Estate.
The Internet is reviving a grand old American tradition: land scams. Thousands of lots in phantom subdivisions that were sold decades ago to people who hoped to build retirement homes in warm states are reappearing on online sites such as the Internet giant eBay.
The new wave of land scams has the potential to snooker millions more around the world because of the Internet's broad and instantaneous reach.
Many of the lots being sold have never been developed because they are on swampland in Florida or isolated desert ranchland in Texas and Arizona. There is no road access, water or power. The land might be developed someday, but county officials who are busy processing a surge in deed transfers are skeptical.
"If someone does buy one of these parcels thinking they're going to build their dream home on it now, that's really a problem," says Bart Medley, attorney for Texas' Jeff Davis County.
Land scams are surfacing in:
Read the rest! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060927/tc_usatoday/oldfashionedlandscamsgohightech)
I have seen these "great land deals" on ebay. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And never buy land sight unseen!