How Does Real Estate Wire Fraud Work?
Hello and welcome to Houston first time home buyers edition. We hope you are in the middle of a wonderful Wednesday. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Wire fraud is a process that include:
Criminals send phishing emails to real estate professionals, title and escrow companies, lawyers, lenders and home buyers, involved in a transaction.
Through these methods, the criminals steal credentials or gain access to email via malware.
The criminals learn about deals and upcoming transactions, including the contact information of involved parties.
By monitoring conversations through malware or seeing property status change to pending on real estate websites, they know when money is about to move.
They then impersonate parties involved in the transaction, sending fraudulent instructions to redirect funds.
If successful, they make off with earnest money, closing funds, commissions, down payments, or seller proceeds, or loan proceeds.
The possibility of fraud is very real. Knowing this information should help you avoid having your hard earned down payment, and or closing cost funds stolen.
As always, thank you so much for stopping by. Remember, if you are thinking of purchasing your first home, please give us a call 713.204.8013 or Email us. We are here to help. We have been helping Houston first time home buyers since 2011 and we can help you. I hope you have an amazing day. Until next time...Diana
