Because Ohio has a strong open public record law, the stage is set for scam artists to take advantage of unsuspecting Ohio citizens, regardless of whether the victim is dead or alive. If probate is not avoided (probate records are public), and there is more than one beneficiary, then an accounting of all the probate assets that the decedent owned will be made public through the probate process. Most of the probate records dating back to the 1980s are online for anyone to view.
The single fact alone that a decedent’s asset information could be available for anyone to access is what motivates many people to get a trust. The assets in a funded trust are not on public display because trust assets do not go through probate. Quite often we hear our clients say that they do not need a trust because they are not rich, but did you know that a huge benefit of getting a trust is to protect your family’s privacy? Although there are many reasons why a person would get a trust, regardless of the amount of money in his or her bank account, one monumental reason is protecting privacy.
When a trust is used as part of an estate plan, the public probate process can often be bypassed if the trust is fully funded. By keeping your personal and financial information out of the probate court, you are protecting your family from unnecessary risks arising from easy public access to your family’s personal and financial information.
We have had several instances this year where our firm and clients have been targeted by scammers due to the information that can be obtained online. A scammer often poses as an imposter, posing as someone you know or trust, and will obtain your information from public and online records and use that data to make someone who trusts you believe that they are you. Case in point: Employees at our firm often get emails from “Nancy Roberson,” but the email is not actually from Nancy. Usually, the imposter sending the email is posing as Nancy and “phishing” for information from our employees by attempting to obtain data that will assist the scammer in identity theft.
In the end, we encourage everyone to practice the “sniff test:” If the request doesn’t smell right, don’t do it. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.