Making up for some lost posting time, as I’m sure you’re noticing.
A couple of days ago, saw this in the Washington Post. People are using the names and credit histories of so-called “straw buyers” to take out phony mortgages, drive up housing prices, sell some property at obscene profits, then foreclose on what doesn’t sell, which, in the process, ruins the credit of the straw buyers. Of course, you’d have to be a little shortsighted (to put it mildly) to essentially sell your identity for a sum of money and a pie-in-the-sky promise at making more, but that doesn’t make the scheme any less wrong. All I have to say is I’m sure the scammer in that article is glad he didn’t do this in China. (See this article for more details. That one’s a beaut. They have no problem deforesting other people’s countries to supply us with sleigh beds and whatnot, but they give no quarter for fraud?)
The Romans had it right — caveat emptor.