Danger when buying a house: a family in Florida lost $ 77 000 because of fraudsters

Florida family lost $ 77 000 due to email fraud, writes WEARTV.

Фото: Depositphotos

Susan Spofford found a great home for her family in Jensen Beach, Florida. She bought a house with her boyfriend, mother, sister and son-in-law.

“It was exactly what we were looking for,” recalls son-in-law Larry Beach.

Negotiations on buying a home went smoothly until it was time to close the deal. The real estate attorney asked for $ 77 000 commissions, but the family was sure that they had already paid the money by transferring the funds to the details provided in the e-mail, which they thought came from the lawyer’s firm.

“The lawyer’s secretary came in and asked: “Do you have a check?” And my son-in-law asked: “Check? What check?’” Spofford recalls.

Beech responded to the lawyer that he had already sent an attorney commission to the secretary. He showed e-mails, and showed instructions for making a payment at the nearest bank.

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The law office confirmed the payment and found that they did not receive the money. Beach realized that he had transferred the money to a fraudster.

Beach scrambled into a sophisticated email fraud burglary. A few hours after his loan was approved, he received an email from the alleged estate lawyer secretary.

The sender of the email asked the client to immediately transfer funds to close the transaction in order to avoid process delays.

“I won't be able to answer phone calls. Send me an email if you need anything else,” the sender wrote.

At first glance, email correspondence seemed legitimate.

The display name of the sender of the letter coincided with the name of the lawyer of the family Spofford.

The letter had the correct logo and contact information in the signature.

Since it all seemed credible, Beach wrote an answer and later received instructions for payment. He went to the nearest bank and sent 77 000 dollars.

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Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the instructions for payment came from fraudsters.

If you click on the displayed names in the email, you can see that the addresses are similar, but not perfectly consistent with the addresses of the secretary and the real estate agent. The scammer faked them.

“I was depressed. I felt like I let down the people who were going to move into this house,” Beach said.

Spofford said that the fraud was like an invasion of privacy.

“It was like someone breaking into your house. You were talking about something you thought was safe,” Spofford says.

The FBI has been warning many years of fraud related to the compromise of business e-mail, and reports that the number of cases of such fraud is growing.

In its latest Internet crime report, the FBI reported that hackers target title companies, real estate agents and lawyers.

Hackers can track emails for several days, weeks or longer, waiting for customers to close a real estate transaction.

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Then scammers fake email addresses and create fake instructions, hoping to steal large amounts of money.

In 2018, the FBI reported that over 20 000 Americans were victims of this real estate fraud, which was almost 1,3 a billion dollars in losses. Often money scammers send to bank accounts in different countries.

Cause Beach and Spofford are currently under investigation.

Spofford decided to tell her family story in the hope that it would help other people avoid this scam.

“People need to be educated,” she said.

The best advice is to pick up the phone and check the person's identity before sending money via wire transfer.

Be sure to carefully review your email address before corresponding with the sender, especially if this is a delicate financial matter.

These scammers try to use email addresses that are very similar to a trusted source, but often differ in several letters.

For example, a scammer might change the “a” and “e” in the name Michael—or use an @email account instead of an @gmail account.

At the last minute, the Spofford family was able to find the money to cover the costs and still move to their dream home on Jensen Beach.

They are grateful that the fraud didn't cost them home, but would like to see their $ 77 000 thousands again.

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