Wire Fraud. That’s a frightening phrase – especially if you are in the process of selling or purchasing a home!
How can wire fraud affect your transaction? Well, there are nefarious individuals out there who make their living off of using wire fraud to steal down payments, loan payoffs, and home purchase wire transfers. All it takes is one letter or number different from what is intended to send your funds to them instead of the bank.
But there is good news! One way you can protect yourself and make sure that your funds arrive at their intended destination is to always, always, ALWAYS give wire transfer instructions either in person or over the phone to your closing or title company.
The biggest thing to watch out for? Email.
Your title company, lender, or REALTOR® will never send you wire transfer information via email, and they will never ask you to send it to them via email. If you receive any kind of email requesting wire transfer information call your title company – and don’t use the phone number that is in that email.
Make sure that you have a complete list of contact information for your REALTOR®, lending team, and closing team, so that if you see something suspicious, you know who to call to get it resolved – and you know what phone number to use.
Wire fraud is also why we at NHDI schedule closings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings whenever possible. If the event that something does happen, if it happens late on a Friday afternoon, it’s a pretty sure guarantee that the funds will be long gone by Monday morning. This also gives you some breathing room in case anything other than a wire fraud issue comes up and you need to delay a few hours, or until the next day.
If you have any further questions, give us a call! We are happy to answer any questions you have regarding your home transaction. Our job is to make your life easier.
This post is part of our Real Estate 101 series. If you feel that this post would help others too, please share it!
