Real estate transactions are the latest target of digital thieves, who are making home buying a bigger headache than it already is.
“The level of social engineering, sophistication and timing that these fraudsters are showing this year is something we haven’t seen,” said Tom Cronkright, CEO of Assertive ID, one of a number of online portals that authenticates the identities in parties in a real estate transaction and then sends wire transfer instructions.
That is where the crime can take place.
“The read fraud comes in when the impersonate someone else that is trusted in the transaction,” said Cronkright. “They have such a believable email, typically, or phone call with all these transaction skills…and they present fraudulent wiring instructions.”
He adds that his company has seen cases where title companies, lenders, buyers, sellers or others lost hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars at the hands of online fraudsters.
“[The victims] are following the instructions of the trusted party,” said Cronkright. “That’s why identity verification is the root of how we solve this, at least at then ‘one-yard line’ before funds are transferred.”
However, the digital security CEO admits that, once his company comes up with a new way to deter real estate transaction fraud, digital criminals come up with a new way to circumvent the solution.