Matt Alegi, chair of the firm’s Residential Real Estate Practice Group, comments on the most recent scandal affecting home sales. The Washington Post article discusses the hacker’s latest scam of tricking home buyers into wiring settlement funds to their personal accounts.
“The scammers are following information about transactions online on the MLS [multiple-listing service] or in the public records,” said Matthew Alegi, a partner at Potomac law firm Shulman Rogers. “It is only a matter of time before someone local gets hit with a six-figure cybertheft.”
Alegi and his staff foiled a recent attempt by a hacker to have proceeds of a property sale wired to the hacker’s account.
“We received an e-mail saying that the proceeds should be wired rather than mailed,” Alegi said. “Our title processor checked with the seller and learned that the e-mail had not come from him.”
According to Alegi, if you wire money to a wrong account, the bank will not reimburse you. “There is usually no recourse to get your money back,” Alegi said.
Read the full article at The Washington Post.
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