Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life. It’s annoying, but thankfully I’ve avoided some of the more catastrophic outcomes when criminals begin impersonating you.
These days, however, it seems like someone is really trying to change that: a scammer has now tried to impersonate me multiple times in a six figure land deal in my hometown of Wilton, CT. So while I usually use this blog to write about finding weird things on the internet, it’s now time for a story about something weird on the internet finding me.
The story begins with my brother Alexander and I purchasing a small parcel of vacant land at 221 Cannon Road in Wilton, Connecticut in 2015. It’s been over 10 years since we purchased it and we have never listed it for sale. Nor do we have plans to sell it.
And yet, three different real estate agents have now contacted us to let us know that someone has been impersonating us and attempting to sell our property out from under us.
The first time it happened, it was pretty upsetting, but now that it’s happened another two times, I figured it was time to write a blog post about it.
The First Attempt (March 2024)
In March 2024, I received an email from a real estate attorney in Wilton, asking if I was the “Fred Benenson” who co-owned property in town with an “Ed Benenson.” He explained that a realtor at a major brokerage had been working with someone claiming to be us, and that there was already an offer on the table. The attorney was doing his due diligence before representing the sellers — and something didn’t add up.
I replied within minutes: Neither of us had spoken to anyone about selling the property. It was pretty concerning.
The realtor had been contacted through Zillow by someone claiming to be me. They’d had a phone conversation — she noted the person had a “middle European” accent — and the scammer had provided accurate details about the property, including its exact acreage. The impostor gave her the email address [email protected] and the phone number (516) 828-0305. He also provided a fake email for my brother: [email protected] . Notice the subtle misspelling — “Benenson” without the second “n” in the email, and the hyphenated “out-look.com” domain.
She had walked the property, taken drone photos, pulled comps, and listed for a price well above what we paid for it. The property had been live on dozens of real estate websites for days before anyone caught it. A builder had already submitted a full-price cash offer.
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