Wire Fraud in a Real Estate Closing: The One Step That Prevents It

Here is how it happens. Someone gains access to an email account — yours, your agent’s, your attorney’s, anyone’s on the transaction. They watch quietly. They learn the closing date, the names, the amounts, the way everyone writes. Then, a day or two before closing, an email arrives that looks exactly like the one you were expecting, with wire instructions that are almost right. The account number is theirs.

Once the wire is sent, recovery is difficult and often impossible. The money is moved within hours.

The step that stops it

Before you send any wire, call and verify — using a phone number you already have. Not a number in the email. Not a number in the attachment. A number from the business card, the engagement letter, the company’s website that you navigated to yourself. Speak with a person you have spoken with before, read the account number aloud, and have them confirm it.

That single call defeats the entire scheme. It costs two minutes.

Other signals worth noticing

• Wire instructions that arrive earlier than expected, or that change after being sent once.
• Urgency: language pressing you to send immediately, or claiming a delay will cost the closing.
• A reply-to address that differs subtly from the sender — a swapped letter, an added character, a different domain suffix.
• A request to keep the change confidential or to avoid calling.
• Instructions directing funds to a bank in a state unrelated to the transaction, or to an account not in the settlement agent’s name.

What Viking Abstract does and does not do

We do not send new or changed wire instructions by email. If you receive an email that appears to come from us with different instructions, do not act on it. Call our office at the number on this site and speak with someone before you move any money.

If you think you have already sent a wire in error

Act within minutes, not hours. Call your bank and request a wire recall immediately. Contact your settlement agent and your attorney. File a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov and ask them to initiate the Financial Fraud Kill Chain. Speed is the only advantage you have.