Property Buyer Wires $13,000 to Sophisticated Hacker After RI Realtor's Email Hacked

Rhode Island real estate agents are urgently changing their email passwords after a sophisticated scammer hacked into a local Realtor’s email account and tricked a buyer into wiring $13,000 to a bank in France.

The scam nearly snared another $20,000 but unraveled after a second, ”slightly annoyed” customer called The Connor Dowd Team of Keller Williams Realty in Newport to ask why their agent was sending emails insisting a wire transfer when the check had already been dropped off.

Connor Dowd said in an interview that along the embarrassment felt by the upset buyer who is out $13,000, the incident is deeply troubling in its sophistication.

“They get into the agents’ email accounts, they monitor the emails and target real estate transactions that are just underway,” Dowd said. “What’s scary about this is its sophistication. They have specific knowledge, this is a large amount of money relatively speaking and the things that normally tip you off -- poor language and grammar -- not in this case. They were very well spoken, there were no red flags.”

The scammer even copied the agent’s email signature and sent the emails using a bogus email address with an extra letter in the name.

The emails came right when the buyer would be expecting communications from the agent and began with an email talking specifically about their transaction and giving wiring instructions, Dowd said.

“In the first scenario, the buyer responded back to the hacker and asked about a check that was just dropped off yesterday,” Dowd said. The hacker responded: “Listen, I know you dropped it off, but we need the wire, please do it, we’ll talk about it later.”

The hacker, pretending to be the agent, said he was in showings all day and would not be able to talk about it until later. The tone of the emails was firm, but not too pushy. It was very convincing. Especially because the hacker had been studying the flow of emails and knew exactly when and what to ask for.

“They asked for the amount that was due in the transaction,” Dowd said.

The incident was reported to the Newport Police Department and the state police. Dowd said the account the money was wired to traces back to France, but it might never be seen again. And it’s not the first time scams of this nature have been reported, though it’s the first time anyone in the real estate industry here in Rhode Island has seen it, Dowd said.

“We wanted to stay ahead of the issue and it’s not the kind of stuff you want to be in the news for, but this story needs to be told,” Dowd said. “The public needs to know, brokers need to know.”

The first step to protect against the scam is to change your email password to something hard to guess.

And agents should warn their clients that hackers and scammers are everywhere and to always confirm financial transactions over the phone or in person as the scam depends entirely on email.

The Rhode Island Association of Realtors alerted agents of the scam last week and urged any similar attempts to be reported to the state police as well their local and state Realtor associations.

Some more tips about preventing fraud in real estate transactions can be found here.