Month: July 2017

Hackers’ latest scam: tricking home buyers into wiring them settlement funds

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news — but there is yet another scheme con artists are using to swindle you out of money.

Here’s how it goes down.

You’re about to settle on a home. You get an e-mail from your real estate agent or from the title company, requesting funds to be wired to an account for settlement. The e-mail purports a last-minute change in wiring instructions.

You dutifuly wire the money using the new instructions.

Then, the call comes from the title company the day before settlement, asking why you have not sent your funds for settlement. This is the moment you learn that you have sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a thief.

This scheme is not new. But a recent resurgence of wire fraud in the real estate industry, and the increase in its sophistication, prompted the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and many national title insurance companies to issue warning bulletins to the industry.

 

We don’t have any hard numbers about how much buyers have lost, but we do have an increasing number of reports that it is happening,” said Katie Johnson, general counsel of the NAR.

According to Johnson, the hackers are monitoring e-mails and waiting patiently to determine what is the best scam. They realized that real estate transactions involve a large amount of money right before closing.

“The scammers are following information about transactions online on the MLS [multiple-listing service] or in the public records,” said Matthew Alegi, a partner at Potomac law firm Shulman Rogers. “It is only a matter of time before someone local gets hit with a six-figure cybertheft.”

Alegi and his staff foiled a recent attempt by a hacker to have proceeds of a property sale wired to the hacker’s account.

“We received an e-mail saying that the proceeds should be wired rather than mailed,” Alegi said. “Our title processor checked with the seller and learned that the e-mail had not come from him.”

According to Alegi, if you wire money to a wrong account, the bank will not reimburse you. “There is usually no recourse to get your money back,” Alegi said.

These schemes are getting harder to catch. The hackers have improved their grammar, and they obtain an almost identical e-mail address, making it very difficult to identify it as a scam.

Patrick Weed, broker of Patrick Realty Company in Kensington, and his buyer client also prevented a potential $20,000 loss.

“I received a call from my buyer asking why I e-mailed her asking for an additional deposit of $20,000 for her purchase in Olney,” Weed said. “She told me that she responded to my e-mail, and that I sent her an e-mail back.”

The e-mails stated that the money was necessary to ensure a smooth and easy transaction.

Weed said he never sent his client an e-mail asking for an additional $20,000. The hacker monitored his e-mail and was able to garner exact details about the transaction. The hacker provided wiring instructions to a bank in Texas.

 

Unfortunately, some people have fallen for this scheme and have lost money.

“Someone in Chicago recently lost $130,000, and in Texas there was a recent loss of $30,000,” said Johnson. “It is prevalent, and it is increasing.”

“We have to be more vigilant than ever,” Alegi said. “Consumers need to be aware. Brokers need to be aware. Title companies need to be aware.”

Here are some tips for buyers and sellers to protect themselves from becoming a victim to wire fraud:

· Never send any sensitive financial information via e-mail, including banking information, routing numbers or PINs.

· Prior to wiring any funds, you should contact the intended recipient via a verified telephone number and confirm that the wiring information is accurate. Do not rely on telephone numbers or Web site addresses provided within an unverified e-mail.

· Clean out your e-mail account on a regular basis. Your e-mails may establish patterns in your business practice over time that hackers can use against you.

· Change your usernames and passwords on a regular basis.

· Make sure to implement the most up-to-date firewall and anti-virus technologies on your server or computer.

· Report any fraudulent activity to the FBI via its Internet Crime Complaint Center.

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· [Foreclosure crisis spawns a wave of rescue scams]

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· [How to protect your personal data in a real estate transaction]

Thanks to the Washington Post

ARE YOU A SCAM ARTIST’S DREAM?

You might consider yourself quite ordinary but crooks are looking for you if you fit the following 

AGE: 55+ 

HOME: Where you live makes you a more desirable target. Fortunately, Florida seems to be the favorite state but don’t get too comfortable just yet. Many of us winter in Florida and not being #1 is not a big deal. Also, the reason Florida is number 1 is the concentration of older people who scammers target. 

RURAL VS. URBAN 

Federal agencies have found that living in a rural area makes you more of a target 

EDUCATION 

A higher level of education won’t make you less of a target but gives you a better chance of avoiding the scam unless you are too smart for your own good 

LONELINESS 

People who live alone are a prime target, especially for telephone or on-line social group scammers. The key red flag here is when they ask you to leave the group site for a more intimate site.

 

Based on an AARP article

TECH SUPPORT SCAM

This is an oldie but baddie that never goes away which means it must still work.  

THE SCENARIO 

You’re sitting at your computer. Suddenly your screen turns blue but with a message saying DO NOT TURN YOUR MACHINE OFF. Simultaneously a voice comes through the speakers issuing a scary warning. 

The message on the blue screen gives an 800 number to call. When you do you will talk to a reassuring “technician”who will quote you a price to ship your computer to Microsoft for repair which will take some time or he can fix it remotely. A good tip-off here is that the price for a remote immediate repair is less than the shipped repair. 

At any rate, you supply your credit card, a charge is made and hopefully the problem goes away.However, the “tech” could leave you stranded but in any case he has your credit card number, expiration date and security code. At this point you might want to call your credit card provider and cancel and reissue a new card.This is especially true if you signed up for their “monthly monitoring service.” 

HOW DID THEY GET INTO YOUR COMPUTER IN THE FIRST PLACE? 

There are at least three ways: Hidden in a free download, malvertising or fraudulent websites. Let’s look at each. 

Download The popup software is hidden in or with your software download. 

Malvertising This is a piece of software that masks the ad you clicked on and displays the blue screen warning instead 

Fraudulent Website A scammer favorite. They simply register (buy) the names of favorite websites with a wrong letter. So lets say you type the web address as Americanexpres.com Instead of an error you will go to their fake website. Other names for this practice are domain squatting or typo squatting. 

HOW SUCCESSFUL IS THIS SCAM? 

Microsoft reports 80% of Americans had some contact with this fraud. 33% interacted with these sites and 20% lost money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download. Basically you download a free program. The popup software is hidden in or with your download

malvertising

ONE OF THE ORIGINAL SCAMS – TIMESHARES

One of the earliest scams (after swampland in Florida) were timeshare sales. But after years of complaints and convictions, timeshare purchases are pretty safe today.

Selling your timeshare, or escaping your annual maintenance fees are most certainly not.

Lets say you regret your purchase and want to sell it. So you post your timeshare on a timeshare sales website. At this point I’ll describe what two sisters experienced from the AARP article.

Initially all calls were from 800 numbers, but finally a call from a Florida area code. The young man told her the name of his company and said he had a Canadian couple who wanted to buy her unit. He provided their number and the woman validated everything the salesman said. The sisters received closing documents already signed by the buyer with a request for the company’s fee of $2,250 to be refunded at settlement.

There is a history to this scam. In the 2007 recession timeshasre sales declined very sharply putting a lot of timeshare salesmen out of work. In addition, many of the 9.2 million timeshare owners wanted to sell with no buyers. SHAZAM! Opportunity plus millions of victims called to scammer and they answered. A whole INDUSTRY was born so shutting down a few really doesn’t do anything to prevent this fraud from continuing.

But a question arises. If I put the charge on my credit card, can’t I get my money back? Normally you would be but scammers wouldn’t make any money if you could.So the scammers had another scheme for the Verification call.

To shorten the details, the salesman said you would receive a “Verification Call” which they said was legalese to complete the sale. They then coached the victims in how to answer. This usually worked because the buyers were desperate, but what the scammers needed was for them to say on the recorded line was that there was no buyer.Then the trick is to keep the sellers on the hook for 120 days so they can’t dispute the charge. Then they call and say the sale fell through. Even though the sellers are angry only 10% file a complaint. If they do, they are blocked by the recorded “Verification Call” recording that they made.

SUPPLY OF VICTIMS

There is a virtually free large supply of potential victims for the scammers. First, timeshare ownership records are public. Second, many victims will fall for the scam again.