By Shae Rozzi, Fox23 News
When you transfer money for a down payment on a home or to make a large purchase, you may be required to do a wire transfer. Scammers may be able to get a hold of your information to steal your money.
On the RCB Bank website is a security center with several tabs at the bottom, including one to educate customers about wire transfers.
The bank warns “Money moves quickly in a wire transfer. This makes it almost impossible to get back.”
On the Arvest Bank website, they explain phising scams, where thieves are fishing for your information like account numbers, passwords, and social security numbers.
Phising scams go hand in hand with the wire transfer scam.
Titan Tile and Closing, which handles real estate transactions across the Tulsa metro warns about wire transfer fraud explaining:
Email from hacker – The hacker then emails that person to change the wiring or payment instructions without knowledge from the other parties.
Consumer pays wrong account – If not questioned, the wrong account gets the down payment and the criminal gets away.
Amie Mitchell, CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Oklahoma, says when it comes to real estate closing, they are warning clients to be extremely careful when they’re going to wire their closing costs and what’s due at closing.
“So on this, I highly recommend you read the instructions very carefully. Get them from your broker or your loan closer, make sure you follow those instructions exactly as it is stated. It is very specific,” says Amie. “If you get a text message, an email or anything like that, saying that the instructions have changed, ignore that and contact your contact at your title company or whatever it might be. Only use their instructions.”
Amie says that if someone gets a hold your wire transfer from your bank account, that money is unfortunately gone.
