![\"bar\"](\"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/bar.jpg\")
\nThere is a clear new pattern of crime now: scammers stealing serious money by posing as real estate agents or title companies and providing seemingly secure transactions.<\/p>\n
yikes<\/h2>\n
Reports of these frauds have gone up by 480 percent nationwide, clearly indicating that many Americans are falling victims to foul play.
\nTargeted parties stand to lose their life savings and in most cases, affected people never retrieve their money again.<\/p>\n
So far, these frauds have already added up to millions in lost money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Often the money is wired overseas.
\nThe cyber criminals target susceptible homebuyers, closely monitoring their purchase decisions, and hone in on victims at crucial moments of vulnerability, for example, right before the final payments, thereby coming across as legitimate.<\/p>\nUsually the initial access is acquired by hacking the email accounts of the brokerage or title companies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Messages of their clients are intercepted, and then fraudulent emails designed to look authentic are sent to homebuyers about wiring payments to an account belonging to the scammer.
\nVictims unknowingly send wire transfers to faceless scammers believing they are send it to their trusted brokerage firm.<\/p>\nThis particular cybercrime tactic is not new<\/h2>\n
A year ago, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Association of Realtors warned homebuyers about hackers sending fraud emails claiming \u201clast minute changes\u201d to the wiring instructions, and telling the buyer to wire closing costs to a different account\u2014the closing cost phishing scheme.<\/p>\n
What seems new is the rise in the crime rate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Both NAR and FTC strongly recommends reporting any phishing attack to the FTC.
\nIn order to be safe, FTC suggests never sending financial information via email as it is not secure. Additionally, homebuyers are encouraged to go to websites of financial institutions and brokerage firms directly or go via email instead of through an email-embedded link.<\/p>\nThe \u201chttps\u201d in the URL, where \u201cs\u201d stands for secure is also a good indication about authentication.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Downloading email attachments or clicking on links is always risky. Before any major wire transfer, making phone contacts with the brokerage or mortgage firm is always the best way to go about it, FTC officials remind homeowners.<\/p>\n
Want more to be done<\/h2>\n
The American Land Title Association (ALTA) has criticized FTC\u2019s warnings as falling short of its intended consequences. They demand more action, visibility and concrete steps from other agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite efforts by the title industry and others to educate consumers about the risk, homebuyers continue to be targeted,\u201d Michelle Korsmo, ALTA\u2019s chief executive officer, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the spring homebuying season underway, it\u2019s vital to continue raising awareness about these schemes,\u201d Korsmo added.<\/p>\n
#Phishing<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY) Homebuyers are continuing to be targeted in an ever growing phishing scam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337694,"featured_media":3594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[1419,1234,823],"class_list":["post-11468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-tech","tag-phishing","tag-real-estate-news","tag-scam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/01\/person-writing.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337694"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11468"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11471,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11468\/revisions\/11471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}