Wire fraud attempts are very common in the title industry. A typical wire fraud scheme, encountered by some of our agents, is known as a business email compromise (“BEC”). In this scheme, the fraudster has hacked into a party’s email account.
The fraudster then lies in wait, they read the outgoing and incoming emails waiting for a sales transaction to occur.
The title insurance business has been, and continues to be, a target of increasing attempts at wire fraud. The most common method used by cyber thieves is “Phishing.”
Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies or individuals. The intent is to trick or deceive individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers or re-route and steal funds, as is the case with wire fraud.