1,100% Rise in Real Estate Phishing Scams!

Phishing scams rose 1,100% between 2015 and 2017
Phishing scams led to a $1 billion loss in real estate transactions in 2017 alone

Yes - it's happening regularly and it's real here in Oregon as well.  We frequently hear from our Title reps about buyers losing their down payment funds to scammers.

Through sophisticated phishing scams, scammers take advantage of home buyers during the closing process.  In emails that appears incredibly similar to the realtor's or title officer's email, they provide false instructions to home buyers to wire their down payment funds to a fraudulent account.

Steps are being put in place to guard against this kind of cyber attack such as, the title company only providing wiring instructions to the buyers in person, requesting the home buyer to have their financial institute call the title company prior to wiring the funds to confirm wiring instructions, encouraging home buyers never emailing their financial information and avoidign links or downloads that arrive in an email.

Read this Inman article to learn more about the June 3rd, 2019 warning from the Consumer Protection Bureau.