The Expert Podcast

This is a terrible story. about a couple. Retired teacher and their daughter who had lived. in an apartment and we're buying a condominium. And what happened was they were a victim of wire fraud This is a very common real estate fraud when you're buying a home. the scammers will know how to intercept your money that you're using to buy that property Maybe the down payment maybe for paying cash. And this. pair of people were scammed out of their 200,000. they needed to buy the house and that was all their money. Now They don't have an apartment and they also have no money They're basically homeless and now they're broke.

How does this happen How you can prevent it. Well wire fraud is very easy for scammers to put in place because most people only buy. home maybe once or twice in their lifetime It's not something you do every day So you may not know the procedures of how to do this. And you're going to get an email from your title company that says, why are us the money? And, and the fraudsters know how to intercept these emails. So you wire the money to the wrong place There's a very simple way to avoid this, basically what you do If you're a buyer. Is before you wire your entire. Nest egg funds wire very small amount a dollar $10 a hundred dollars whatever it is. Two. The routing number and account number you're given by your title company, and then verify from your title company they received it. That way you know what's going to the right place. Once that's done then you can wire the bulk of it to the say. place When you go to your bank to wire it you tell them why or to the same place I did The last one don't change anything that way you know what's going to the right place

This is a very simple solution to this Tragic ongoing problem. We recommend that. All realtors instruct their buyers on how to do this We have a white paper you'll find on our website VerifyEscrow.om about how to do this doesn't cost anything It doesn't have any extra expense for you as a buyer or you as a realtor to help you. Your clients avoid this problem It even happens on the sell side. Sometimes sellers. We'll have money wired to them and they'll have their wire intercepted on the way out Usually it's on the buyer side. So this is another example of this. This a wire fraud that happens with closings. And it's another reminder of using the simple very simple techniques to avoid this because in this case you know these poor people, you know they're they're in rough shape, right This poor woman. We're was. told that the closing that their money wasn't there and they have no house and they have no place to live.