Property owners in Isabella County will soon have a new tool to protect themselves against online mortgage fraud.

County commissioners on Tuesday approved a re quest by Register of Deeds Sharon Brown to amend her office’s contract with ACS to include an online fraud module.

Craig Jones, an account sales executive with ACS, explained that the property fraud module the company developed will be offered to county property owners at no charge.

Expected to be up and running by the end of the summer, the module allows property owners to sign up for e-mail alerts if documents have been recorded to ensure that the owner of the property requested the documents, Jones said.

With deed fraud becoming a big problem in metropolitan areas like Detroit and Chicago, Brown wanted to put a system in place to assist Isabella County residents in not falling victim to online fraud.

An example of online fraud is someone going to the register of deeds office, finding information and recording the deed, Brown said.

In some cases, online predators buy copies of deeds and send letters to the property owners indicating they must pay for a registered copy of the document, Brown said.

In reality, only the register of deeds can offer a registered copy, and property owners are charged $2, Brown said.

Predators have attempted to charge property owners upwards of $40 for copies of deeds, which are not certified, she said.

Isabella County will be the first in the mid-Michigan area to offer such a service, Jones said.

“It’s a service,” Jones said. “It’s not going to bring in revenue, but it will allow people to monitor things.”

Jones told commissioners that he will work with Brown and that there will be a link to the service on the register of deeds website once the program is active.

Commissioner George Green, who said he will sign up for the service, expressed concern over online predators targeting property owners in parts of the county in which oil is being drilled, and potentially ending up with mineral rights to the property.

Commissioner Jim Moreno noted that Isabella County will be a pioneer, being the only county in the area using the ACS system.

Brown said some other Michigan counties use similar systems in an attempt to stop online mortgage fraud.

Source:http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2010/05/05/news/doc4be0b62b4fd21487191972.txt