How to avoid wire fraud at your Georgia closing

A buyer wires their down payment to what they believe are the closing attorney's instructions. The money lands in a criminal's account, is moved offshore within hours, and is gone. Not delayed — gone. Recovery is rare, and homeowners' insurance does not cover it.

What makes this worth understanding is how unvaried the attack is.

How the scam actually works

Someone gains access to an email account in the transaction — often the buyer's, sometimes an agent's, occasionally a small firm's. They do not do anything immediately. They read.

They learn the property, the parties, the closing date and the tone people use with each other. Then, a day or two before closing, they send what looks like a routine update: the wiring instructions have changed, here are the new ones, please send today so we stay on schedule.

The email address is off by one character. The signature block is copied exactly. The urgency is calibrated to the closing date they have been reading about for weeks.

The one rule that defeats it

Never act on wiring instructions you received by email. Not ours, not your agent's, not your lender's.

Before you send a single dollar, call the closing attorney's office and confirm the instructions verbally — using a phone number you obtained independently. Off the website you typed in yourself, or the business card in your hand. Never the number in the email. If the email is fraudulent, so is the number in it, and a very convincing person will answer.

Our own rules

• We will never send you new or changed wiring instructions by email — if you receive one, it is not from us
• We verify every outgoing wire by verbal callback to a number we source ourselves
• We confirm payoff figures directly with the lender, never from a forwarded PDF
• We confirm seller proceeds with the seller before funds move

If you think it has happened

Move immediately — the window is measured in hours, not days.

• Call your bank and request a wire recall at once
• Call the receiving bank's fraud department
• File with the FBI's IC3 at ic3.gov — their Recovery Asset Team can sometimes freeze funds if reached fast enough
• Call us at (770) 506-7765 so we know what is happening to the file

A note for FSBO sellers and buyers

Transactions without an agent are targeted more often, because there is one fewer experienced person in the thread to notice that something is off. If you are selling your home yourself, this is the risk to take most seriously.