Hmm, I guess you technically just need to convince a notary that you're the seller and with virtual closings/ mobile notaries I guess that's probably pretty easy.

But still the scammer would never see the earnest money, unless the buyer backed out outside of an option period for whatever reason. Presumably they wouldn't if the land is cheap, and they've agreed to pay cash and put earnest money down.

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WillPostForFood 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The scammer isn't trying to get the earnest money, they are trying to get the full sale price.

	▲	IhateAI 15 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Well yes, I assume that too. But the article says they'll pocket the earnest money which makes zero sense. Probably another example of someone incapable of writing an article by themselves and used an LLM. >"7. If they get farther they’ll pocket the earnest money deposit which would have been significant in my case."
	▲	phendrenad2 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Is there a single case of the scammer getting a single dollar from one of these scams? My suspicion is that there isn't. (Everyone who doesn't know the answer and isn't curious should downvote me.)

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InitialLastName 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The global freight carrier storefronts around me all have notary services. I used them to notarize the documents from my last home sale; they glanced at my ID to the extent that they checked it matched the name on the paperwork, and signed off on it.