A property purchase is one of the few moments in ordinary life when wiring a very large sum is routine. That is precisely why it is targeted. The instruction looks as though it came from the title company, the closing attorney, or the agent. It did not.
The scale of the problem
In 2025, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded more than 20 billion dollars in reported losses across more than a million complaints, a 26 percent rise in a single year. Real estate fraud alone accounted for roughly 275 million dollars of that total. The technique behind most closing fraud, known as business email compromise, has been one of the two costliest categories of cybercrime for years, with about 2.77 billion dollars in reported losses in 2024.
Florida is consistently among the three states with the most complaints, which matters for anyone buying or selling property here.
How the scheme works
It begins quietly. An attacker gains access to the email of someone in the transaction: an agent, a paralegal at the title company, a junior person at the closing attorney's office. They do not announce themselves. They watch the thread, learning the names, the tone, and the timeline.
Near the closing date, when wire instructions are expected, they send a message that fits the conversation perfectly. The account number has changed. The wire should go here instead. There is a polite reason and a gentle urgency. The buyer follows instructions that look entirely legitimate, and the money is gone within hours.
Why affluent buyers are targeted
The transfers are larger, so a single success is worth more. There are more parties in the thread to compromise: agent, attorney, title company, lender, and sometimes a family office or wealth advisor. More inboxes mean more ways in, and more people who might forward a fraudulent instruction without a second thought.
The one rule that stops it
Confirm every wire instruction, and every change to one, by voice, using a phone number you established in advance, never a number contained in the email itself. Call the title company or attorney directly and read the account details back before you send anything. Treat any last-minute change to payment instructions as fraudulent until you have confirmed otherwise on a known line.
That single habit, agreed before the transaction begins and applied without exception, defeats nearly all of these schemes. The mechanics of the fraud are not sophisticated. The discipline to verify is what is usually missing.
If it has already happened
Speed is everything. Call your bank immediately and ask them to recall the wire, then report it to the FBI at ic3.gov. When victims report quickly, the FBI's recovery team has frozen a meaningful share of stolen funds before they disappear. Hours matter; days are usually too late.
Establishing a verification rule, and making sure everyone around a transaction follows it, is one of the first things a Private Cybersecurity Engagement puts in place for a household. If you would like to talk through your own exposure before a closing, you are welcome to request a private consultation, or to start with the complimentary guide.