"It's HOT, so don't touch!" You say, warning your child not to touch. But how do they learn without experiencing what 'hot' means?
Please o' please do not learn the hard way what it means to not forward wire instructions! Yes. It used to be normal to get wiring instructions from escrow and to forward them on to your clients. But times have changed and if we do not change our ways our clients will suffer the consequences.
According to the National Association of Realtors one of the fastest growing cybercrimes in the U.S. is wire fraud in real estate. About 11,300 people were victims of wire fraud in the real estate and rental sector in 2018 (a 17% increase over 2017), with losses of more than $150 million, according to FBI data.
The highest reported fraud in real estate in 2017 was Business Email Compromise/Email Account Compromise (BEC/EAC.) Fraudsters will assume the identity of the title, real estate agent or closing attorney and forge the person’s email and other details about the transaction. The scammers will then send an email to the unknowing buyer and provide new wire instructions to the criminal’s bank account.
Here are the rules now:
Do not forward or request wire instructions from escrow
Be proactive and email escrow with your clients contact information so escrow can reach out to them directly via a secure email link
Tell your clients not to use wire instructions that were received by a normal email. Only trust those from a secured email address.
Provide contact information to your clients and have them call escrow at their bank to verify wire information verbally
Alternatively, have them mail or drop off a cashier's check or Personal Check to escrow. Please note: A personal check can take up to 10 days to clear. If a file cancels it will need to clear to be refunded. If it is a quick close of escrow it can hold up an on time closing.
I can do a lot of things for you but I cannot stop you from forwarding wire instructions. My control over your send button has yet to installed on my computer. So please heed my warning. Be flexible and handle this differently and with the utmost respect.
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