An Infomercial Protection Racket

Defend yourself from a mostly imaginary crime for less than $20 a month.

By
76
(Photo by Getty Images.)

Geoff Henley is a Dallas-based lawyer, real-estate investor and former title-company owner. When I describe to him the business model of Home Title Lock—charging terrified oldsters $19.95 a month to provide them with “complete protection” against the subatomically miniscule possibility of losing their homes to simple title fraud—he laughs for almost a minute straight.

“Damn,” he says after regaining his composure. “I wonder if it’s too late for us to start one of those?”

If you listen to talk radio or watch cable news, you know about Home Title Lock. It’s not the only company of its kind, but it’s the best-known. Political TV and radio are absolute cavalcades of baloney, avalanches of quacktastical ads for miracle doggie vitamins and dehydrated vegetables in capsule form, fish oil supplements infused with botanicals, and sundry pills and powders and potions and gold coins and real-estate seminars to make you independently wealthy. The message is always a variation on the themes of pain and fear. Get your life back. Take control. Protect yourself. David Foster Wallace described the goal of advertising as to “create an anxiety relievable by purchase.” It’s a strategy cable news and talk radio take seriously, even when they have to invent or exaggerate a source of anxiety. 

The story the home-title monitoring companies tell in their overwrought advertisements is indeed anxiety-inducing. A shady guy forges your name on a document. Then he files a phony deed saying he owns your house. Soon he sells the house or takes out a big loan against it. This leaves you—the elderly viewer or listener trembling in your Buick at the stentorian tones of Sebastian Gorka—homeless and financially ruined. 

Keep reading with a free account
Create a free Dispatch account to keep reading Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
76
By
Comments (76)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Jaredmanly77

    This is quality content. Appreciate the information

    Collapse
  2. Shaybult

    Quacktastical is officially my new favorite word.
    Not sure how I managed to miss this piece when it first came out, but so glad Kevin linked to it in his most recent (today? yesterday?) column!

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Realwoodies

    I can't believe you managed to get this much written about this subject.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I enjoyed this article so much. Classic Kevin Williamson. I can just imagine the conversation with the title guy.

    Collapse
  5. Brett

    This happens much more often than you suggest. And the harm isn't losing the house somehow, it's more in the legal headaches which are easier to quickly resolve when caught early. That said, it's correct that the 20/month just buys you monitoring which you can do for free or almost free and with basically no time investment depending on the state on your own. Maybe in an offline county it has some value to a shutin but I would guess that the companies don't even provide service there because it would be so uneconomical.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Dave K

      Do you have stats on how often it happens?

      Collapse
      1. Brett

        No but it is enough to keep many lawyers busy full time dealing with it. It is still extremely rare for it to happen to any random consumer. But I would say the odds go up, and you should watch your land title records, if you are frequently refinancing or investing in real estate beyond just a second home.

        Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    "Newt Gingrich, pitching Home Title Lock..."

    Of course he is.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Greg Williams

    There was a rock and roll station in Cinci years ago that ran fake ads for fake products to add a little humor. One of those fake products was the Portable Hole. The ads were hysterical. They always ended with the tag like - "Brought to you by Brute Force Cybernetics, the company that creates a need then fills it."

    I've always thought of talk radio as "Portable Hole" entertainment, themed by contrived fear and hubris. It's the modern sociological equivalent of the old snake oil wagons that would roll into a town. To paraphrase The Who - The hypnotized have never heard a lie. People who buy the fear mongering content of talk radio are prone to buy anything else that feeds the addiction. No doubt WEBN got a few serious calls from people wanting to know how they could order a Portable Hole.

    Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Joedvik

    I'm excited you came to the dispatch and will be doing this kind of reporting. Interesting, important, and still fun to read. Thanks for making the change!

    Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Tmcke

    And Newt Gingrich's career has come to this. Lower the Dr Oz.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

      Doesn't surprise me one bit. Once a snake-oil salesmen always a snake-oil salesman.

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Cogitatio

      Pretty sad for a guy who was once considered something of an intellectual.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Man-Eating Cow

        Intellectuals have always included the worst snake oil salesmen in their ranks,

        Collapse
  10. Tom Doniphon

    Too much marketing for older people seems to be oriented around (1) fear and (2) nostalgia. I still remember seeing Dick Clark hawking CD collections of music from Boomers' youth; it was always the cheap stuff that hasn't held up over time. Very little from Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, or the Stones (all of which would be expensive anyway) and lots of stuff from people like The Animals, various mop-topped bands who never got past emulating early Beatles stuff, and various one-hit wonders from the late fifties after Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry had all seen their careers and hit records taper off.

    The fear though...all the nonsense about buying gold and whatnot. I guess the Gen X version is crap like long-storage Patriot Food and stuff. Put it in your shelter for when the ATF hit squads come around to take you to the gulag or pull a Ruby Ridge on you!

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Cogitatio

      "I guess the Gen X version is crap like long-storage Patriot Food and stuff"

      I have always thought of it as all the "organic" products. Costs twice as much and is generally half as effective. Some years back I did a bit of research on what constitutes an "organic" product and was not surprised to find that it is a shifting target that does not really mean what people expect.
      The USDA states that "produce can be called organic if it's certified to have grown on soil that had no prohibited substances applied for three years prior to harvest. Prohibited substances include most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides."
      What is not generally known is that organic requires more land and uses far more fertilizers and pesticides, creating more runoff and can create more hazards than the synthetic varieties. And the strange resistance to GMO plants continues to confound me, particularly so since it comes from both the Left and the Right.
      *shakes head*
      More examples of how the "Science! Party" and the Republican party are not much different, they just have differing priorities.

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Kevin M. James

      The last time I stumbled across a PBS pledge drive, they were still stuffing the day's schedule with Boomer-nostalgia live music spectaculars and self-help gurus.

      Collapse
    3. Avatar photo
      Tmcke

      Funny to mention the Dick Clark collections. They were not bad if you wanted to get a few tracks that were not otherwise available. And Dick Clark's CDs are in no way in the league with this property fraud scam.

      Oh, and what do you have against the Animals?

      Collapse
      1. Tom Doniphon

        I'm not saying they were scams; I was just pointing out that marketing to older people has for a while now tended to fall into the two categories of fear and nostalgia. My point with the Dick Clark CDs is that they didn't have much in the way of music from the 50s and 60s that has maintained popularity over time; people to this day still laud Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis as the founders of rock and roll, and consider the Beatles, Stones, and The Who great rock bands. But instead those collections seemed to mostly be filled with stuff that not only came out when Boomers were kids and young adults, but stuff that ONLY Boomers really cared for. You'll find younger people still listening to the Stones, at least music aficionados; almost nobody under the age of 70 listens to the Animals or Ricky Nelson.

        Nothing against the Animals; I was just commenting on the nature of the marketing.

        Collapse
Load More