Attention real estate customers: If you receive an unexpected change to wiring instructions before closing day: be very suspicious – even if the request looks official, contains accurate details about your transaction and appears to come from someone you trust.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sophisticated scammers duped 11,300 victims out of $150 million in 2018, due to real estate wire fraud, and the number of victims and total money lost keeps growing.
If you recently complied with one of these changed requests, you could already be a victim of wire fraud and need to act fast. Reporting the incident within 72 hours of authorizing the wire transfer gives you the best chance of getting your money back. Follow the steps below to know for sure and start the recovery process.
Step 1: VERIFY
Call the real person, not the alleged sender of the wiring instructions, using a known, trusted phone number. (NEVER use any contact information from the communication.) Ask if the trusted source sent the new wiring instructions. If not, and you already wired funds, you are a victim of wire fraud.
Step 2: CALL YOUR CLOSING AGENT
Call your closing agent (usually your title company). They will notify other parties involved in the transaction and follow their company’s procedures for responding to wire fraud.
Step 3: NOTIFY SENDING & RECEIVING BANKS
Step 4: REPORT TO LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
Step 5: CONFIRM WIRE RECALL
Call the sending bank back to confirm that the wire recall request was processed.
Step 6: FILE A COMPLAINT WITH IC3
Filing a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) helps streamline communication between financial institutions and law enforcement to expedite the recovery of funds involved in fraudulent domestic transfers.
Visit www.ic3.gov and provide the following information to support your claim:
Step 7: SECURE YOUR ACCOUNTS & DEVICES
Fraudsters have been known to hack the personal email accounts of clients associated with business email compromise, so it’s recommended you:
Unfortunately, once your money is wired into a new account, you are not likely to get it back. The FBI has no jurisdiction to recover money in offshore accounts. If you have the resources, you may want to consider hiring a lawyer in that country to recover what you can. Most banks do not reimburse funds lost to fraud. Learning and following best practices for preventing wire fraud can help protect your funds in the future.