Avoid Wire Transfer Hacks
Story about how to avoid having your wire transfer stolen when buying real estate. It take hard work to save up thousands of dollars to buy your dream home. Be careful. Take your time. Don't let your account become a ghost town.
Question from a Borrower:
"A hacker got into my real estate agent's account and posed as my title company last year in which, I dumbly, wired money too. My first heads up should of been that the first wire bounced back, but went ahead and sent another one. By the time the real title company has alerted me that they had not got the funs, I was about to take off for a trip (literally on the plane) At the time, my agent was able to call the bank (WellsFargo) and alert them of the fraudulent account of which they then found and closed. Since then both my outgoing bank (which I used to initiate the transfer and tried to do a recall) and WellsFargo - the receiving bank - have been sort of a dead end. Wells Fargo refuses to talk to me as they are saying they are 'protecting' their customer" Mike
My answer:::
Mike the cause of the hack is probably your own actions. There are many things you should not be doing with money to purchase real estate. Privacy and secrecy are vital to holding control of your funds for down payment and closing costs.
Here are some guesses as to where you failed:
When you start the transaction you fail to call escrow/attorney to verify the bank account number and routing to wire. This account number rarely changes.
Fail examine an incoming email address. If you attempt to reply you note the email is similar but off by a number or dot. Email is suszy.que@fatco.com and the incoming is suszy.que@mfatco.com Similar but wrong person.
You use same password for accounts and email or simple guessable passwords. I'm not a believer that dual sign in does anything to protect you. The bad guys probably can spoof your phone number as well. Refuse to allow banks to use voice identification I believe this is not secure. Post notice on large account to not allow wire transfers, no Zelle, no ACH without me personally walking into the bank or brokerage with my identification.
You text private transactional information. Never text your agent or Realtor instructions. Never text social security number, date of birth, account number. Twenty years ago I told my children they were not allowed to enter their real date of birth in MySpace and Facebook. Those fake DOB show up in credit reporting today. Use a fake DOB for social media and entities that don't need your exact information.
You give your date of birth, social security number freely without caution. Who really needs this information? Your electric company stores all your information waiting to be hacked. Ask them in writing to take it down.
You have not checked sites that verify what information about you is online. Some of these sites are free, some are also bad guys. In writing ask for them to take it down, using your junk email.
Chance of getting the funds back after ten days .001% Sorry it's a very bad batting average.
You signed the agreement to wire twice. Wire fraud is VERY COMMON.
Why was the money in Realtor's account? NEVER give authority to someone else to handle the transfer.
Do not do the following mistakes:
You announce on a public forum you are doing a transaction,
You have credit pulls and you use the same email address with lender and settlement/attorney. ANY decent lender knows not to send your correct email to order a mortgage credit report as your information is sold and picked off by other lenders and fraudsters, but yours gave away the keys. Use a trusted lender not an online call center. Verify the Lender's NMLS license in the state where the transaction is in process. Bigger Pockets has many lenders posting who are not licensed and answer questions with questionable information.
You email through realtor IDX website,
You don't have a secret personal email that you change the complex password often. Change the passwords during the transaction.
You use your junk email with Realtor and settlement agent,
When you start the transaction you fail to call escrow/attorney to verify the bank account number and routing to wire. This account number rarely changes.
What should you be doing?
Check, double check, do not be rushed, things can close tomorrow.
Work with people who know you.
You give your date of birth, social security number freely without caution.
