I got an unsolicited postcard advertising $950 flat rate fee charged by Gil H. Vilkas for real estate closings. Since I was about to sell my home, I called the secretary, who confirmed the price. We decided to sign an agreement. The agreement had very little small print, which I read thoroughly.
During the process I only once talked on the phone with Mr. Vilkas (who charged me an hour's fee for the 20-minute call). All exchanges were with his paralegal or his very rude, uncooperative secretary. It was a nightmare to get any answers from that office.
After the closing their invoice was $2,275 (as opposed to the $950 advertised). They paid themselves by deducting the $2,275 from the proceeds of the sales that they had in an escrow account. When I questioned the hidden fees, they sent me an agreement, a page longer than the one I had signed full of small print justifying those hidden fees!
It gets much worse:
Exactly four months after the closing, I discovered that I had been robbed. Somebody with my personal information, and forged signature withdrew $10,000 (ten thousand dollars) from savings account.
When I went to file the police report, I was advised to check my credit reports, in case of identity theft. Sure enough, somebody opened credit cards in my name spending thousands with them.
Somebody who knew that there was money in my savings account, who had all my personal information, including a way to forge my signature stole not only my money but my identity (date of birth, SS number, etc.)
Both events, the withdrawal of the money and the stores where the credit cards were opened happened in Long Island, not too far from Mr. Vilkas' office, and nowhere near my home or the places where I go.
Who could have had all that data? I'd never used that account for any transaction or checks. The only people with access to my savings account number were the ones who handled the transfer from the lawyer's escrow account to my savings account right after the closing. Not only that, that office had all my personal information.
When I did online banking and saw the electronic copies of those withdrawal slips, my signature looked EXACTLY like the one I used in the closing documents (my signature is slanted and the slant varies a bit from time to time).
In my opinion, the culprit is connected to that office: either an employee robbed my identity or they sold it to criminals at some point. I came to this conclusion after hours of research into this theft matter. I looked at many other possibilities. Nobody, not even my partner had as much of my personal information as Mr. Vilkas' office. read more
