AUSTIN, Texas & GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 24, 2023–
CertifID Inc., a leader in wire fraud protection, has collaborated with federal law enforcement to issue an advisory on the latest wire fraud threat to real estate businesses and consumers.
In recent months, an alarming increase in incidents have been reported to the company involving the listing and sale of vacant land and properties that are free of mortgage liens. These scams involve bad actors posing as owners of these vacant lots or properties.
This recent trend is just the latest in an ever-evolving landscape of scams focused on the real estate industry. Leading tactics that cyber criminals have leveraged to perpetrate these frauds include Business Email Compromise (BEC). The FBI 2022 Congressional Report on BEC and Real Estate Wire Fraud cites BEC as the leading source of victim loss reported to their Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), totaling $2.4B in 2021.
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), home sales continued to fall for the 10th month consecutively in November. As a result, cybercrime rings have turned to new tactics to make up for the lower housing market transaction volume that they can target. Here’s how these new vacant property scams work:
- Public records are searched to identify real estate…
