Real estate wire fraud works like this: a criminal gets into an email account tied to your home purchase, watches the deal move toward funding, and then sends wiring instructions that look like they came from your agent or settlement agent but point to an account the criminal controls. Here’s the rule that lowers your risk. Before you wire anything, confirm the instructions by phone, using a number you already had before those instructions arrived. Never trust wiring instructions that show up only by email, and never call a number or click a link inside that email.
What’s at stake is the whole wire—your down payment and the rest of your closing funds, sent in one movement. Wires are built for speed, not second thoughts. Recovering one depends on how fast you report it, and recovery isn’t something anyone can promise. One phone call, made before you hit send, is the cheapest protection in the transaction.
How Does Wire Fraud Target a Real Estate Closing?
A criminal gains access to an email account belonging to someone in your transaction, reads the thread, and waits. Close to funding, a spoofed message arrives asking you to change the payment method or send the funds to a different bank account. It reads like every other email in the file.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes the pattern plainly in its guidance on mortgage closing scams:
“During the closing process, scammers send spoofed emails to homebuyers—posing as the real estate agent, settlement agent, legal representative or another trusted individuals—with false instructions for wiring closing funds.”
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center files this under business email compromise, and its public service announcement on business email compromise says the scam targets all participants in real estate transactions:
- Buyers
- Sellers
- Real estate attorneys
- Title companies
- Agents
Once perpetrators gain access to a participant’s email account, the IC3 says, they’re able to monitor the real estate proceeding and often time the fraudulent request for a change in payment type (frequently from check to wire transfer) or a change from one bank account to a different bank account under their control.
Two things follow from that. The criminal isn’t guessing at your closing date. And a request doesn’t have to arrive from a stranger’s address to be fake, because the account it comes from may belong to someone real.
How Do You Verify Wire Instructions Before You Send Money?
Call the person who gave you the instructions at a phone number you obtained before the transaction began, and read back the account name and number out loud. Don’t use a phone number or a link from the email. Don’t send financial details by email at all. If nobody confirms the account, don’t wire.
The CFPB’s first step happens well before a wire request ever lands: identify two trusted individuals who can confirm the closing process and the payment instructions. Ahead of your mortgage closing, discuss the closing process and money transfer protocols with those two people in person or by phone, such as your realtor and your settlement agent. That conversation leaves you with two verified voices and two verified phone numbers, agreed on in advance.
From there, the CFPB’s instructions are short:
- Before wiring money, always confirm instructions with your trusted representatives. Never follow instructions contained in an email.
- Verify the closing instructions, including the account name and number, in person or by using the phone number you previously agreed to.
- Avoid using phone numbers or links in an email.
- Don’t email financial information. Email is never a secure way to send financial information.
It helps to know your number before anyone asks you for it. When you understand how your cash-to-close wire amount is calculated, a request for a different figure stands out instead of blending in. Verification isn’t an extra chore bolted onto the end of the deal. Build it into your plan for Fellowship’s home purchase loan process, and settle who you’ll call before any instructions arrive.
Warning Signs That Should Stop the Wire
Real estate wire fraud comes down to one moment: a change to instructions you’ve already been given. Any change like that earns a phone call, and the sourced patterns are specific.
- A request to change the payment type, frequently from check to wire transfer.
- A request to send the money to a bank account other than the one you were given.
- Wiring instructions that reach you only by email.
- An email that hands you the phone number or link you’re supposed to use for confirmation.
- A request for your financial information by email.
- A change to previously given instructions that lands close to your closing.
There’s a trap in trying to catch this by reading the email closely. The sender can be spoofed, and someone monitoring the real thread has had time to match its tone. That’s not a proofreading problem. It’s a verification problem. The fix doesn’t depend on how the message looks, because you’re confirming the account name and number by phone either way.
Timing is part of the disguise. The fraudulent request is aimed at the stretch when money is supposed to move, so knowing what else to expect on closing day makes an out-of-sequence request easier to spot.
What Should You Do the Moment You Suspect a Fraudulent Wire?
Contact your bank or wire-transfer company immediately and ask for a wire recall. Then file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. Use the phone, not email, and call the trusted contacts you identified before closing. Reporting the error as soon as possible can increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to recover your money.
That last sentence is the CFPB’s, and the hedge inside it matters. Speed improves your odds. It isn’t a promise of recovery. So make the calls in that order and don’t sit waiting to see whether the email thread answers you.
Ask your bank or wire-transfer company for the recall first. File the IC3 complaint next. Then tell the people in your transaction what happened, using the numbers you already had rather than anything supplied in the suspicious message.
If you catch the request before the wire goes out, the same rule runs in reverse. Stop, call your trusted contacts at the numbers you agreed on, and hold the funds until the account name and number are confirmed out loud.
Frequently Asked Questions About Real Estate Wire Fraud
Can the fraudulent email come from a real address I’ve been writing to all along?
Yes. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center describes criminals gaining access to the email account of a participant in the transaction, which means a fraudulent request can appear inside a thread you’ve been reading for weeks. The CFPB separately describes spoofed emails posing as the real estate agent, settlement agent or legal representative. A familiar name isn’t verification. A phone call to a number you already had is.
Can I email my bank account details to the closing office if they ask?
Don’t. The CFPB’s position is blunt: email is never a secure way to send financial information, so financial details shouldn’t go out by email at all, even to someone you’ve met and trust. If a request for account information arrives by email, move the conversation to a phone number you already had and read the details aloud instead of typing them into a message that anyone sitting in a compromised inbox could read.
What if the only phone number I have for the settlement agent came from the email?
Then you don’t have a number you can verify against, and that gap is what the scam counts on. The CFPB’s guidance is to avoid using phone numbers or links in an email and to confirm instructions using a number you previously agreed to. If you don’t have one, hold the wire. Reach the person through a contact you established earlier in the transaction, and get the account name and number confirmed by voice first.
Is a request to switch from a check to a wire transfer normal?
Treat it as unconfirmed until a trusted contact tells you otherwise on the phone. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center describes criminals timing a fraudulent request for a change in payment type, frequently from check to wire transfer, or a change from one bank account to a different account under their control. A legitimate change in payment method is possible. It still has to be confirmed by voice, at a number you already had, before any money moves.
Who should my two trusted contacts be?
The CFPB suggests identifying two trusted individuals who can confirm the closing process and payment instructions, and it offers your realtor and your settlement agent as examples. Talk with both of them in person or by phone ahead of your closing, and pin down two things: how the money is supposed to move, and which phone number you’ll use to confirm it. Keep those numbers somewhere that isn’t your inbox.
How much does reporting speed matter after a fraudulent wire?
Enough that the CFPB puts it first. Contact your bank or wire-transfer company immediately and ask for a wire recall, because reporting the error as soon as possible can increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to recover your money. Note the wording. It can increase the likelihood, which is not the same as a guarantee, so the hours after you notice aren’t the time to wait on an email reply. Make the call, then file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
One Call Before You Wire
The protection here is boring, but it’s worth doing every time. You decide ahead of time which two people you’ll call and which numbers you’ll use. Then you use them. The email can say whatever it wants.
Our recommendation at Fellowship Home Loans is the one we’d give a family member: before you wire a single dollar of your closing funds, call your loan officer at a number you already have, not a number from the email that just arrived, because we’d rather field an extra phone call than watch a buyer lose their closing funds.
If an instruction looks off, or if you’d rather walk through how the money is supposed to move before your closing date, reach out to a Fellowship loan officer at a number you already trust and confirm it by voice. Then send the wire.
