Homebuyers Fall Prey to the Email Hacking Scheme Of Crooks

The crooks have come up with a trick which victimizes the homebuyers in such a way that he/she ends up sending the money to them without being suspicious. As per the FBI, the homebuyers of Tampa Bay area have lost over $25 Million in the down payments within the first six months, this year.

A special agent of FBI in Tampa, Andrew Sekela said that, "crooks keep doing this because it is working".

The crooks work like this: they identify the people who are buying a new home and are ready to give the down payment. This they do by hacking emails of the real estate professional's, and getting all the details of the home deal and whereabouts of the buyer. When it is time for the home owner to wire the down payment, the thief intercepts email with the wiring instructions and instead sends the homebuyer fake instructions.

It often happens that by the time the victim realizes that he is being forged, the money had gone to the crooks account. Andrew Sekela recommends that whoever experiences this should immediately call up his own bank and also the bank where the money is supposed to go, and try to flag the money, before it can be moved to another account by the crook. And irrespective of any instructions from the bank, the next thing the victim should do is make a call to the FBI. Along with that, the incident should also be reported to FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre.

The victim should call up their FBI field office and then follow the prompts. As soon as any person picks up the call, the victim should say that you he/she called for reporting a "Business Email Compromise". These are the keywords which will send FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) into a protocol that was designed in order to help the victim in getting back the money.

Sekela said that the victim have around 72 hours to get back the money in most of the cases. He further confirmed that FBI is successful in getting back the money in around 80% of the cases, mainly when it is in the domestic account. Sekela added that if the money gets transferred, or the money is kept in international account, then it becomes very hard to retrieve that money back.

To be on a safer side, one should be doubly sure and thus before making a wire transfer - one should call up the person and confirm the instructions. One should never rely on the phone number given on an email. Instead, check your own phonebook and confirm the phone number before dialing.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/14/2018