Danger, Danger! Wire Fraud Alert!
By Jim Palmer Jr.

There is a crisis sweeping through the real estate industry now that can be totally avoided by taking a few simple precautions. I have warned about this danger in a previous article, but it bears repeating because this problem has only intensified in the last few months in our region. Since the advent of the internet, bad guys have found many easily perpetrated scams that have damaged the public. One of the latest scams concerns these crook’s ability to impersonate Realtors® and escrow officers in a wire fraud in order to secretly scam buyers out of thousands of dollars.

Here is how it happens: 1) An email is hacked (the brokers, escrow officer or consumer) and the hacker finds out that you have a pending real estate transaction. 2) The sophisticated hacker secretly monitors the account until they ascertain the approximate time that the consumer must wire funds. 3) The hacker instructs the buyer to wire funds immediately, while impersonating the broker or escrow officer. The emails even include authentic looking letterhead and “almost” exactly mimic the email addresses of those whom they are impersonating. They create a sense of urgency so the buyer feels obligated to send funds immediately. These instructions often explain that the broker can’t be reached by phone so any follow up must be done by email. When the consumer replies to the email, the consumer’s email is diverted to the hacker who controls the account. 4) The consumer wires funds which are immediately swept from the account by the hacker, with no recourse for the damaged consumer.

Recent world-wide sting operations have netted many of these bad guys, but for every one of them put behind bars there is two to replace them! Don’t be one of the statistics that have been duped by these weasels! Real estate buyers and sellers can avoid such fraud by taking two simple steps: 1) Obtain the phone number of your real estate broker and your escrow agent at your first meeting. 2) Call the known phone number to speak directly with your broker or escrow officer to confirm wire instructions PRIOR to wiring. Do not rely upon email communications. Your closer will NEVER email wiring instructions to you so if you receive an email that suggests that, you should automatically know it is fraudulent. Spread the news about this! Education is our only defense!