Regarding home inspectors and tollway scams

This week was a bit slower in the legislature as we shifted our focus to taxes and expenditures, but I did lead passage of a bill related to home inspectors, and I want to educate you about some scams that Iowans are falling for.

  Buy Photo

The vote on the bill was unanimous in the House. Either it was a great bill, or I was very persuasive. It was probably the former.

The purchase of a home is often the largest expenditure a person will make in their lifetime. An important part of that process is the home inspection. A good home inspector can help buyers make better-informed decisions as they spend large amounts of their hard-earned money.

If a home inspector does a good job, a new homeowner will not face unhappy surprises six months after they move into their new house. The inspector will catch problems before the deal is closed, and those problems can be addressed fairly between the buyer and seller.

This bill should ensure that Iowa’s home inspectors consistently do an objective, professional job for Iowans, and it does so without creating a cumbersome licensing regime.

Under the bill, home inspectors must meet certain basic qualifications for the job, and they must not do certain things that a few bad actors have engaged in.

Specifically, they may not (i) provide kickbacks to realtors for hiring them, (ii) offer to do repairs for a fee right after they report that the repairs need to be done, (iii) inspect a home for a fee that they will also receive a commission on the sale of, or (iv) conduct an inspection if their fee is contingent on making certain conclusions in their report.

We do not have reports of major problems with home inspectors in our state, which is great, but this bill should help buyers have recourse if a bad actor causes them financial harm.

Unpaid highway toll scam

I want to warn you about some scams that are being used against Iowans. This first one happened to me yesterday.

I received a text message about a “toll” that I had not paid. The text message wanted me to click on a link to make a payment. It said that if I didn’t pay, my vehicle might get seized.

I did not click on the link, and neither should you.

If you remember nothing else about this scam, remember this: the Iowa Department of Transportation doesn’t collect any tolls on bridges or roads.

These texts are not from the Iowa DOT, and you should not click on links within the text messages or provide personal details.

The Iowa DOT will not send you a text message about tolls or fees. Any payment requests from the Iowa DOT are made through personal transaction, by physical mail or through an online transaction that you initiate.

If you receive a suspicious text, here’s my advice:

• Don’t click on or respond to unexpected texts. Scammers want you to react quickly, but it’s best to stop and check it out.

• Take a breath. Scammers are hoping you panic.

• Ask someone you trust to look at the text and tell you what they think. I find that younger people are pretty helpful in this regard. They’ve grown up in a world where this kind of fraud is more prevalent.

• Do a quick internet search to see if it’s a scam. I Googled “are text messages about unpaid tolls a scam?” Google said it probably was a scam, and the first link was a Federal Trade Commission report on this scam.

• Block and delete unwanted text messages.

I’d probably stop here, but if you want to go the extra mile, you can also check to see if the text is legit. Reach out to the relevant agency (in this case, the Iowa DOT) using a phone number or website you know is real — not the info from the text.

Government websites in Iowa, including the DOT, end with “.gov”

If you feel that you are a victim of a text scam, consider filing a police report with the local law enforcement agency where you reside. Report internet-based crime at ic3.gov

Speak to AARP’s Fraud Watch Helpline and find Fraud Victim Support Groups. Request a free credit report and research identity theft prevention at annualcreditreport.com/index.action.

Other common scams

There are several other scams that are being run right now. Here are a few that are particularly relevant.

Grandchild in need. My grandmother fell for this one many years ago. She received a call that her grandson had been arrested in Florida and needed her to wire money to post bail. So she did. What she should have done was call my aunt to see if the grandson was in Florida. She didn’t do that. She panicked and sent the money. Her grandson was actually at work at Menards in Iowa.

Romance. An Iowan develops a relationship online or by telephone with someone out of state. That person requests money for airfare to travel to Iowa, so the couple can be together. The Iowan wires the money and never hears from the person again. This one is particularly cruel.

Jury Duty. This one is surprisingly effective and very common right now. You get a call that you failed to appear for jury duty and now you are in big trouble. But, they tell you, you can stay out of trouble if you just send a bunch of money into the “court.” Again, you send the money, but the whole thing was fake.

There are several others as well, but if you stop, breathe, and talk to someone you trust before clicking strange links or sending money in unusual circumstances, you can avoid trouble.

Crypto ATMs

I want to flag one more issue for you that most of you may not have heard of — cryptocurrency kiosks. These look like ATMs, and they will accept cash and convert it to bitcoin or other cryptocurrency.

There is nothing illegal about owning or investing in cryptocurrencies. I want to be clear on that.

But the Iowa Attorney General has filed suit against the owners of crypto ATMs in Iowa because many Iowans are using them to unknowingly pay scammers. I have been working on a bill to regulate them more tightly (SF 449). One estimate I heard was that Iowans have paid scammers over $500,000 through these machines.

But the point is, if anyone asks you to deposit money in one of these machines, please do not do so until you’ve done some more research and talked to someone you trust. Once money is put into crypto, you won’t get it back. One of the main reasons cryptocurrency exists is because it is anonymous and untraceable.

If you’re wondering where these machines are, it turns out that there are several nearby. A quick search reported one in Williamsburg, two in Tiffin, five in North Liberty, six in Coralville, and eleven in Iowa City.