SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) – Some home buyers are losing thousands of dollars in the escrow process as thieves hack emails and force payments to go to them instead of the buyer’s title companies, according to the FBI.
The FBI said the number of people being victimized by what the agency calls "business e-mail compromise scam" (BEC) has skyrocketed in recent years. What makes the scam so hard to detect, according to the federal agency, is the fact that scammers are sometimes using real emails they have hacked into.
Last month, News 8 brought you a story about an Oceanside couple who lost their entire life-savings of $130,000, after being scammed into wiring their down payment to a fraudulent escrow account while buying their dream home.
The couple told News 8 at the time that the scammers used their escrow company’s exact email to ask for a wire transfer, and just like that all their money was gone.
According to investigators, BEC fraud happens when a sophisticated team of hackers gain access to the email accounts of a legitimate business. Scammers will then use the email accounts to trick people into sending wire transfers and other payments to fraudulent accounts.
The FBI offered a few tips to avoid being a victim of BEC fraud:
- Be suspicious of requests for secrecy, or
- Pressure to take action quickly
- Always confirm wire requests
- Be aware in a sudden change in businesses practices
- Scrutinize all email requests for anything out of the ordinary
- Do not feel pressured to send a wire
We asked Lynn Yockey, a certified escrow officer in San Diego, how to deal with scammers and what to watch out for when dealing with these types of situations.
“It is their life savings and it is devastating. They [scammers] know how to mimic the emails, and in some cases email addresses look like they are actually coming from that party,” she said.
“We are never going to pressure you. [We] are not going to say it is urgent right away,” said Yockey.
Last summer, the FBI conducted Operation Wire Wire – which targeted these types of scams. In addition to making 74 arrests, they also seized $2.4 million in funds, and stopped an additional $14 million in wire transfers.