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- City of Southlake
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- Scam Alert for Home Buyers and Sellers
Friday, April 19, 2024
In the past 6 months, we’ve had about 10 of these cases, so if you’re buying or selling a home, listen up!
Let’s assume you’re buying a brand new home here in the glorious land of Southlake. You’ve worked hand in hand with your realtor, your mortgage company, and your title company for the last few months. You’ve built a rapport with them. You expect an email or two a week, whether they need another pay stub or your last 6 months of bank statements. The purchase date is rapidly approaching, the movers are locked in, and all of the sudden, you receive an email allegedly from your title company that says “we actually need the down payment today, so please wire it immediately to this bank account.”
You do that, because I mean, the email came from the title company, right? Nope. Here’s what’s happening.
Hackers are finding a way to get into the emails of realtors/mortgage companies/title companies to send you these bogus requests. These guys are GOOD, and as you can probably guess, the down payment on a house here in Southlake isn’t a mere $20K.
If you’re in the process of buying or selling and you receive an email request for money, call your mortgage or title company immediately before sending off funds. Double check your emails and look for slightly off verbiage and misspellings. Look at the email address it came from—in our cases, the suspect email was one or two letters off the regular email address of your trusted contact.
And if you’re a mortgage or title company, please stop using public Wifi to communicate, because that’s how they’re getting in! We’re doing the best we can on our end, but we need your help!
