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I wanted to give you a heads up on a scam that's going on throughout town. Luckily, it hasn't affected any of our clients, and I want to make sure you can be prepared, so it doesn't affect you.
If you're nearing a real estate closing or any situation where you may need to wire funds to a closing attorney, you cannot afford to miss this alert.
Basically, a fraudulent third party crook is posing as the attorney's office, sending emails to buyers as they near their closing date. They will send an email saying that the buyer needs to wire a certain amount of money for their down payment or a certain amount of money if they're making a cash payment in order to be ready to close on the right day.
Somehow, they're gaining access to this information, and sending out these emails just a few days before close. These emails have the name of someone from the attorney's office and look like they came from the attorney's office. They look very legitimate from what I'm told.
I heard a story that a buyer mistakenly sent $77,000 to the wrong person as a result of one of these scams, and that money is likely going offshore or overseas somewhere. It's a big scam, and it needs to be stopped.
I wanted to let you know so that you can protect and guard yourself against this scam. We're also telling our clients who do need to wire money to call the recipient first, to make sure you have the correct instructions and that any emails did come from them, and not a crook who is impersonating them.
As always, if there's anything I can do for you, a friend, family member, or coworkers, please feel free to give me a call.
