I damn sure do
I owned some Austin chalk production rights back in the 80
15,000 apiece....I got back about half my investment then got a notice from a court I think near Llano that I was sold production from a guy in Amarillo who didn’t have the right to sell them
Tom Jones...like singer
He went to jail for about a 20 million dollar scheme
I was out on the deal by a Shamrock landman whose wife I’d grown up with
He got hosed too
My dad had similar experiences with a geologist in Dallas he’d gone to VMI with
Oil business?
Own the production outright
On leases...buy them from the deeded landowner who has them....yourself
Even pros get screwed
I would assume the modern database stuff online makes fraud harder no?
In the late 70s early 80s I knew folks made a fortune living in courthouses
High hourly wages and all expenses and benefits or paid by the lease or equity share
Folks lived on the road from Montana to Louisiana and even south Alabama and panhandle Florida scouring courthouses and making cold calls to farmers or timber people
On pipelines we farmed out leases....some smart pipeline owners bout leases while buying right aways
Talking about it I miss it a bit but I wouldn’t want to be away from home that much
Most of the big producers honor their deals; it's the landmen who do a lot of damage with false claims. Some are pure pros and are upright and forthcoming; some are just sleazy liars. During the Shale boom, there were too many of the latter and not enough of the former.