Public records make it easy to identify who lost a property and roughly what it sold for. That means anyone who has been through a foreclosure or tax sale becomes a target for a mix of legitimate services, aggressive operators, and outright fraud.
If you have received one of these approaches, treating it with suspicion is the correct response. Here is how to sort them out.
Signs that something is wrong
- Any request for payment before money has been recovered: a fee, a deposit, a filing cost, a gift card, or a wire
- A request for your Social Security number or bank details in a first contact
- A claim or implication of being from a court, county, or government office
- Pressure to sign immediately, or a claim that the opportunity expires within days
- Refusal to tell you which agency holds the funds
- A guarantee that you will receive a specific amount
- An offer to buy your claim, or paperwork that assigns your rights rather than representing you
- Unwillingness to put the fee in writing before you commit
- A fee that seems disconnected from the work, particularly a large percentage in a state that caps it
The assignment problem
This one deserves particular attention because it does not look like fraud. Some operators do not offer to help you claim your money. They offer to buy your claim, often for a fraction of its value, paid immediately.
For someone in financial difficulty an immediate payment is genuinely attractive, which is what makes the practice effective. But signing over a forty thousand dollar claim for five thousand dollars is not a service. Several states prohibit the assignment of a surplus claim for exactly this reason. If the paperwork transfers your rights rather than authorising someone to act for you, stop and get independent advice.
How to verify anything independently
- Look up the case number yourself in the court or county records the approach cites
- Call the agency named and ask directly whether surplus funds are held for that property
- Search the company name together with the words complaint and licence
- Check whether your state requires a locator to be licensed or bonded, and whether the company is
- Contact the company through the details on its own published website rather than replying to the message you received
- Ask a local attorney to look at any agreement before you sign it
The most important thing to know
In most jurisdictions you can claim a surplus yourself, directly from the agency, at no cost. You may still choose to use a service because the process is unfamiliar, the documents are hard to obtain, or the estate situation is complicated. Those are legitimate reasons.
But you should be making that choice knowing the free option exists. Any service that does not tell you about it has already told you something important about how it operates.