Get AI Briefings, Transcripts & Alerts on Local & National Government Meetings — Forever.
Palm Beach County clerk warns Jupiter residents of rising, sophisticated scams and deed thefts
Summary
Mike Caruso, Palm Beach County Clerk of Court, told the Jupiter council that scams impersonating law enforcement and court officers are growing more sophisticated and that property-deed fraud cases have climbed sharply; he urged residents to sign up for the countyproperty fraud alert.
Mike Caruso, the Palm Beach County Clerk of Court and Comptroller, told the Jupiter Town Council that scammers have moved beyond obvious prize schemes to highly targeted calls and messages that impersonate court staff, sheriff's deputies and other officials.
Caruso said national figures from the Federal Trade Commission put scam losses in the billions and that Florida reported 21,294 scam incidents in the last three quarters of the previous year. "When they ask you for money, it's not maybe a scam. It's always a scam," Caruso said, urging residents to hang up and never give personal or financial information over the phone.
He described three common scripts: traffic-ticket scams that create urgency and request payment by credit card, jury-duty scams that claim a warrant and urge immediate payment, and a growing trend of forged quitclaim deeds used to steal homes. "They download a quitclaim deed, they forge your signature, they have a fake notary on there, and within a week they file it in the courthouse," he said, warning that undoing a stolen deed is "tremendous" and lengthy.
Caruso traced the local trajectory of deed fraud: four cases two years ago, 32 a year later, 184 the next year, and "over 500" so far in the current fiscal year. To help residents, he promoted the countyproperty-fraud-alert service and provided a direct contact for assistance: "I give out my cell phone number ... (561) 702-9319," he said.
The clerkoffice is working with the State Prosecutor and Palm Beach Sheriff Rick Bradshaw on a task force combining education, arrest and prosecution; Caruso described the clerk's role as education and emphasized that reporting helps investigators. He recommended signing up at mypalmbeachclerk.com/pfa to receive immediate email alerts if activity is recorded on a property.
The council thanked Caruso for the presentation and described the information as "very informative," noting the steep increase in reported property-fraud activity and urging residents to take the alert seriously.
