How does real estate wire fraud usually work?

Criminals compromise or imitate the mailbox of a title company, closing attorney or lender, observe the transaction, then email the buyer new wiring instructions shortly before closing. The email uses correct names, the right property and plausible timing. The buyer wires, and because a wire is not a check it does not bounce and is typically moved onward within hours.

What is the one habit that prevents it?

Verify wiring instructions by voice on a phone number you already had, from your own file or from the firm website you navigated to yourself, never the number printed in the email. Read the account details back aloud rather than asking whether they are right. The FBI guidance is to use a secondary channel to confirm any change in account information, and this is what that looks like in a closing.

How big is the problem?

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received 21,489 business email compromise complaints in 2023 with adjusted losses over $2.9 billion, following over $2.7 billion the year before. Real estate is a named target. Reported cases include a buyer wiring over $449,000 on instructions impersonating their own attorneys, and over $1.3 million sent on compromised title company instructions.

What do I do in the first hour if a client has wired to a fraudulent account?

Contact the originating financial institution immediately to request a recall or reversal, file at ic3.gov with the full banking detail, contact the receiving bank and the local FBI field office, and tell your broker at once. The FBI Recovery Asset Team initiated its freezing process on 3,008 incidents involving $758.05 million in 2023, and that only works if it is told in time.

What should I ask a brokerage about this?

Whether there is a written protocol or it is left to individual habit, whether clients receive a written wire fraud warning as standard at the start of a transaction, who an agent can reach in the evening when money has gone, and how the firm errors and omissions coverage treats it. Policies handle this unevenly and it is far better to know before you need it.

Wire Fraud in a Real Estate Closing: What an Agent Has to Do

Updated August 2026 · Reviewed by Adams, Cameron & Co.

Quick answer

Two things, and the first one is a habit rather than a policy. Never let wiring instructions reach a client through email without a voice verification on a phone number you already had, obtained from your own records rather than from the email itself. Criminals compromise or imitate a title company or attorney mailbox, send instructions that look correct, and the money is gone at the moment it lands. The second thing is speed. If a client has wired to a fraudulent account, the recall attempt starts with the sending bank immediately, and a report goes to the FBI at ic3.gov, because there is a window in which funds can sometimes still be frozen and it closes fast.

Key takeaways

This is business email compromise, and the FBI reports it at scale: 21,489 complaints with adjusted losses over $2.9 billion in 2023, and over $2.7 billion the year before, across all sectors.
Real estate closings are a named target. Reported cases include a buyer wiring over $449,000 on instructions impersonating their own attorneys, and over $1.3 million sent on compromised instructions from a supposed title company.
The FBI defense is a secondary channel: verify any change in account information by a route other than the one the request arrived on. In practice that means a phone call to a number you already had.
If it happens, contact the originating financial institution as soon as the fraud is recognized to request a recall or reversal, then file at ic3.gov. The FBI Recovery Asset Team exists for exactly this, and in 2023 it initiated its freezing process on 3,008 incidents involving $758.05 million.
Say it to the client out loud, early, and more than once: we will never send you wiring instructions by email, and nobody will ever email you a change to them.

Of everything that can go wrong in a transaction, this is the one that ends careers and takes a client's entire down payment with it. It is also the one an agent can genuinely prevent, using a habit that costs about ninety seconds per closing.

It deserves a page of its own because most agents know it exists in the abstract and have never been told precisely what to do.

What the attack actually is

It is business email compromise. Somebody obtains access to, or convincingly imitates, the mailbox of a title company, a closing attorney or a lender. They watch the transaction long enough to learn the names, the dates and the amount. Then, close to closing, they email the buyer new wiring instructions.

The email is not obviously wrong. It uses the right names, refers to the right property, arrives at roughly the right moment, and often explains the change with something mundane about a banking update. A buyer who has been told nothing about this has no reason to doubt it.

Then the money leaves. A wire is not a check and does not bounce. Within hours it has usually been moved onward through several accounts.

The scale, from the FBI's own reporting

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center describes business email compromise as one of the fastest growing and most financially damaging internet-enabled crimes. In 2023 it received 21,489 BEC complaints with adjusted losses over $2.9 billion. The previous year it was 21,832 complaints and over $2.7 billion.

Real estate is named as a specific target population. The reported cases make the shape of it clear: buyers closing on a home received an email impersonating their own attorneys and a wire went out for over $449,000. In another, a senior citizen closing on a property received compromised instructions from what appeared to be the title company and sent over $1.3 million.

Those are not edge cases. They are the standard version of this crime, and the amounts are simply whatever the transaction happened to be worth.

The defense, stated as a rule you can follow

The FBI guidance is to use a secondary channel or two-factor verification to confirm any request to change account information. Translated into what an agent actually does:

Never treat emailed wiring instructions as authoritative. Not the first set, and emphatically not a change to them.
Verify by voice, on a number you already had. From your own file, from the firm's website you navigated to yourself, from the business card. Never the number printed in the email. That number is part of the attack.
Read the account details back aloud rather than asking whether they are correct. Digit by digit. A compromised mailbox cannot answer a phone in a voice you recognize.
Treat any change as fraud until proven otherwise. Legitimate last-minute changes to wiring instructions are rare. Fraudulent ones are common.
Tell the client at the beginning, not at the end. The warning has to arrive before the fraudulent email does, because after it arrives the client already believes it.

The sentence worth saying to every buyer, early and more than once: nobody involved in this closing will ever email you a change to wiring instructions, and if you receive one, it is not from us.

The first hour, if it happens

Speed is the entire game, because the funds are being moved onward while you decide what to do.

Call the sending bank immediately and request a recall or reversal. The FBI guidance is to contact the originating financial institution as soon as the fraud is recognized. Not the branch tomorrow. Now.
File at ic3.gov with the full banking detail: amounts, account numbers, the receiving institution, the timing.
Contact the receiving bank and the local FBI field office.
Tell your broker at once. This is not a problem to manage privately, and delaying it makes the brokerage's position worse as well as your own.

There is a real chance of recovery if the response is fast. The FBI operates a Recovery Asset Team for exactly this, and in 2023 it initiated its funds-freezing process on 3,008 incidents involving $758.05 million in potential losses. That process depends entirely on being told in time.

Why this belongs in a conversation about brokerages

An agent is not the only line of defense here and should not be the only one. Firms differ enormously, and the differences are worth asking about directly:

Is there a written protocol, or is it left to each agent to have a good habit?
Does the firm give clients a written wire fraud warning as standard, at the beginning of the transaction?
Who does an agent call at seven in the evening when a client says the money has gone?
Does the brokerage's errors and omissions coverage contemplate this at all? Many policies handle it poorly, and it is better to know beforehand.

Those sit alongside the rest of the infrastructure questions worth asking, and this one has a larger number attached to it than any of the others.

The adjacent handling-money rules

Escrow deposits are governed separately and tightly in Florida, which is covered in how long a broker has to deposit earnest money. And the record you keep of what you sent, when, and to whom is not merely good practice: brokerage record retention is a real obligation, and it is also the file you will be extremely glad to have if a wire ever goes wrong on one of your transactions.

The short version

Verify every set of wiring instructions by voice, on a number you sourced yourself, and treat every change as fraud. Warn the client at the start, not at the closing table. If it happens, call the sending bank and file at ic3.gov within the hour. Ninety seconds of habit against a six-figure loss is the best trade available in this job.

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