Connor Dowd is operating principal and principal broker for Keller Williams Newport and East Bay. He unfortunately has had experience with real estate-related scams that are being reported in Rhode Island. According to Dowd, representatives of the Boston field office of the FBI estimate $800,000 was targeted by scammers nationwide last fall, which has since grown to $2.4 billion.
PBN: What kinds of scams have you, or your agents, been subjected to in the past year?
DOWD: One of my agents has been a victim of what the FBI calls “E-mail Account Compromise.” An email was sent to her buyer in the middle of a transaction which was very convincing in looking like it came from her, but it didn’t. It instructed the buyer to wire $13,000 before closing to a specific location. Unfortunately, the buyer went ahead and wired the funds.
PBN: How did you learn that your company had been targeted or affected?
DOWD: We found out about the scam when the buyer actually communicated in person with our agent. When we found out what had happened, we immediately contacted the bank to try to stop the wire. Unfortunately, at that point the wire had already been initiated. We then contacted authorities.
PBN: What advice do you give Realtors about protecting themselves and their transactions?
DOWD: These scams are extremely sophisticated. An agent’s domain name may be changed slightly or the reply may be routed to a different address. In some cases, the scammer has complete control over their email. The first step is making agents aware of what is going on; the second step is to have them educate their buyers so they can make sure that scammers are unsuccessful.
PBN: What advice do you give clients, including homebuyers? Should they always call a Realtor if they are asked to send money?
DOWD: We’re telling our clients to make sure they do two things: One, never send money requested by an agent or closing attorney in an email without speaking to them in person to confirm. And two, always report any completed or attempted fraud to the FBI’s site at www.IC3.gov as soon as possible. If reported in the first three days, the FBI has been 70 percent successful in recovering the targeted funds. On the fourth day that number falls to 13 percent.
PBN: How have you changed your online practices since this experience? Are you more cautious in resetting passwords, for example?
DOWD: Changing passwords often is extremely important, as is using a good computer spyware filter, but even that may not stop wire fraud. Educating buyers is the best way to stop these scams in their tracks.
