07/20
Real Estate Tip of the Week: Protect Your Clients from Wire Fraud
With COVID bringing many agents, buyers, sellers, and the likes towards more and more digital features, it’s important that we still are just as vigilant as we’ve ever been before against real estate’s greatest enemy: wire fraud.
AmeriTitle has partnered with CertifID – the nation’s leading wire-fraud prevention solution to implement an additional level of security to your transactions. Check out our CertifID article here.
First, What is Wire Fraud?
One of the final stages of a home purchase includes the homebuyer wiring money for their closing – the homebuyer would receive a legitimate email from their attorney, title company, or mortgage company with details on how and where to wire the money.
Unfortunately, wire fraud involves a cybercriminal hacking into the email system with fraudulent wire-transfer instructions. Usually, it is only after the wire transfer has been completed, that anyone fully realizes a crime has taken place.
Here’s What You Can Do
By closing with AmeriTitle, your transaction (with utilizing CertifID) is backed by a $1,000,000 guarantee at no cost to you, or your clients. Check out CertifID’s infographic below:
Safety Tips
- Be sure to confirm wire instructions verbally, or in person. This might mean calling up your attorney, title company, or real estate agent.
- When calling to confirm, be sure to use the numbers you received and verified at the beginning of the loan process. Do not try and call the number listed on this new email, text, or letter with an updated wire instruction change.
- Do not click on any link within the email that you find suspicious.
- Ask your bank to confirm the name on the receiving account before sending a wire.
- After confirming your wire instructions are legitimate, verify with your title company that they’ve received your wire four (4) hours after the transfer.
For more information on how you can prevent wire fraud, check out the NAR’s tips here.
AmeriTitle believes in preventing wire fraud – call your local office to find out more on what we’re doing to combat wire fraud.