Cybercrime is on the rise, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), and unfortunately, your real estate transaction may be in the crosshairs.
According to a report issued by IC3, cybercrime complaints rose to nearly 850,000 in 2021, a 7-percent increase from 2020. Potential losses exceeded $6.9 billion, with business email compromise/email account compromise (BEC/EAC) schemes accounting for nearly $2.4 billion. Many of those losses were experienced by homebuyers, sellers, escrow companies, and lenders, as cybercriminals have discovered easy targets in the unprotected emails of the participants in the real
estate transaction.
While losses continue to snowball, there are steps real estate agents can take to protect their homebuyer and seller transactions. To assist you in those efforts, we offer this overview of BEC/EAC schemes as well as effective prevention tactics.
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