06/10/2021
BE CAREFUL FOLKS WITH ANY WIRING OF ANY MONIES ANYWHERE!!! See story below:
Morning everyone… Just a heads up on another wrinkle in the wire scamming going on! Long story short… we had the sellers, the buyer’s agent’s email got hacked, the hackers copied the signature from our title company, and started emailing the buyers directly, posing as both their agent and the title company. Happened over Memorial Day weekend. Buyer didn’t realize title companies don’t work on weekends here. She called, questioning the change in account number to wire the funds to, but was told they were undergoing an audit…and she thought it was her agent who told her this. The remainder of her down payment money is now gone. They were still able to close, much to the relief of our clients, but what a nightmare! Our take away… to repeatedly tell our clients that, should they receive an email like that, to simply pick up the phone and call someone on our team… NOT the title company. Then WE will check into it for them. To also hammer home that they will not receive an email like this over the weekend. I don’t think we can discuss it too often… we heard two recent stories, where someone lost $50,000, and another person lost $1 million. So… best to belabor the point! — in Tampa, Florida.