A scammer called an estate executor claiming the deceased owed $12,000, used details from public probate records to seem credible, and got paid via cashier's check. Jerry Taylor explains how trusts keep assets private and protect against this fraud, while probate records leave families exposed.
This is a true story of a probate scam. The caller identified themselves as a representative of a local company. The person receiving the call was the executor in the will for their parent who had recently died. The caller said the parent had an unpaid bill with them for about $12,000. The caller had very detailed information on the parent. They had very detailed information on the family and the executor of the will. They knew exactly what was in the estate, and they emailed a copy of the invoice to the executor. The caller said the bill was so overdue that they could only receive payment in the form of a cashier's check, and the executor The executor did so because it was their job to pay off the debts of the estate. Anyone can find out these details. This happened because everything about probate is totally public. If this person had had a trust, the entire distribution of the estate would have been done in private.
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