Had a wire hacked during a transaction ...ready to get my money back! ;-)

[Kuriakos Mellos]

Hey everyone,

So now that some time has passed, and I got that rental up to par (and the slap across my face has healed ); I am ready to get some help in trying to see if can try  and get some of my money back that we believe WellsFargo might still have. 

I had a hacker get into my real estate agent's account and posed as my title company last year in which, I dumbly, wired money too.  My first heads up should of been that the first wire bounced back, but went ahead and sent another one.  By the time the real title company has alerted me that they had not got the funs, I was about to take off for a trip (literally on the plane)  At the time, my agent was able to call the bank (WellsFargo) and alert them of the fradulent account of which they then found and closed.  Since then both my outgoing bank (which I used to initiate the transfer and tried to do a recall) and WellsFargo - the receiving bank - have been sort of a dead end.  WellsFargo refuses to talk to me as they are saying they are 'protecting' their customer - even though we identified it as fradulent.

Not sure if there are any lawyers out there who can help me guide thru the process, but if I could get any money back that would be great. Luckily it wasn't a crazy amount but served as a wake up call.  I am what I would say a pretty seasoned investor and had this slip thru and happen.  Ready to move on!

Thanks !

K-Man

[Caroline Gerardo]

Chance of getting the funds back after ten days .001% Sorry it's a very bad batting average.

You signed the agreement to wire twice. Wire fraud is VERY COMMON.  

Why was the money in Realtor's account? NEVER give authority to someone else to handle the transfer.

Here are the sources how they hack you: 

You announce on a public forum you are doing a transaction, 

You have credit pulls and you use the same email address with lender and settlement/attorney. ANY decent lender knows not to send your correct email to order a mortgage credit report as your information is sold and picked off by other lenders and fraudsters, but yours gave away the keys.

You email through realtor IDX website, 

You don't have a secret personal email that you change the complex password often. Change the passwords during the transaction.

You use your junk email with Realtor and settlement agent, 

When you start the transaction you fail to call escrow/attorney to verify the bank account number and routing to wire. This account number rarely changes. 

Fail examine an incoming email address. If you attempt to reply you note the email is similar but off by a number or dot.

You use same password for accounts and email or simple guessable passwords. I'm not a believer that dual sign in does anything to protect you, they probably can spoof your phone number as well.

You text private transactional information.

You give your date of birth, social security number freely without caution.

You have not checked sites that verify what information about you is online.

Your only recourse is to file suit but you cannot blame your bank for following your instructions. You need paperwork evidence that Wells has the money somewhere and they are part of the fraud, or an employee of the bank is part of the theft. The FBI has thousands of these cases. If it's a year ago, they won't follow up now.