Throwaway account.
My parents wired 335k to scammers on Tuesday thinking it was going to the title company. They discovered today (now two days later) at closing that their money is gone. A complaint with the FBI has been filed. They have also spoken with Fidelity and their bank.
I'm not sure what advice to give them at this point. Do they lawyer up? What are the chances of them getting any of this money back?
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Edit: Parents called Wells Fargo and still couldn't get a lot of info. HOWEVER it does sound like some sum of money is frozen with the bank, so we are hoping for good news. They are also meeting with a lawyer tomorrow to possibly go after the title company.
Edit/Update #2, for those of you asking exactly how this happened: My parents had been emailing back and forth with the relator about wiring the money. They then received an email from what they thought was the title company with instructions for the wire transfer. The scammers got to my parents before they even talked to the title company. It seems to me that the relator's email was probably compromised. The title company is not at fault. The money was wired from Fidelity to a Wells Fargo, likely in South Carolina as that was what was on the wiring instructions (we are located in Texas). Neither Fidelity nor Wells Fargo are answering questions. They called the FBI, but they just said to fill out a form (which my parents already did). They also filed a police report.
Long story short, my in-laws fell victim to wire fraud when placing a down payment on their new home. They received a fake email that was identical to their brokers except for one letter. Everything matched up, including the signature and dollar amount. One big issue is that the agent sent the real wiring instructions to the wrong email address, so my father-in-law never received the actual instructions. My mother-in-law did receive both email’s, but she is not listed as the person responsible for processing payments. My FIL also replied to the instructions asking for clarification on the amount and copied the broker. The fraud replied with “clarification” to both parties, so the broker was on the email chain before the money was wired.
Timeline:
Monday – In laws received fraudulent email with wiring instructions
Tuesday morning – FIL wired payment per instructions
Wednesday midday – Everyone meets for closing and that is when its realized that the money was wired to a fraudulent account. My FIL immediately contacts both banks to freeze account and recall the payment. Wells Fargo is the receiving bank and they have opened an investigation.
Thursday (today) – We are submitting claims, filling out FBI forms, and doing everything we can. I know time is of the essence so I’m reaching out to ensure we are doing everything we can.
There is a massive amount of money on my in-laws are in jeopardy of losing their retirement savings to wire fraud. We're focusing on doing everything we can now, but I'm looking ahead at what our options could be if the money is not recovered. This feels like multiple parties are at fault since the broker was likely the one who had their email compromised and didn't even send critical information to the correct email address. They even mentioned after the fact that other clients of theirs narrowly dodged this same scam a couple of weeks ago. I know its too early to reflect on the errors made in the past few days or point fingers when time is of the essence, but my mind has been racing for the past 24 hours since I first heard about this.
*UPDATE*
The bank has recovered about two thirds of the total payment, so we know they are at least getting that back. There is still about $100k unaccounted for. All things considered, this is good news. I don't have much hope the rest of the cash will be recovered, unless our FBI requests somehow pull off a miracle. My in-laws have hired a lawyer and are looking into legal options.
Closed on investment property today. Received fraudulent email this AM appeared very legit with title company info and all and a BS bank adresss. They even called me pretending to confirm , impersonated my realtor with a confirmation of the right amount and the routine info - all BS. Woulda lost 110K if I wasn’t suspect. Be careful guys this shit is real
On September 16, 2020, a federal grand jury returned an indictment alleging that from January 2014 to March 2019, Mayes, Gooch, and Wells used their positions as co-owners of the Big Red Dealerships (Big Red Sports/Imports, Big Red Kia, Norman Yamaha, Norman Mitsubishi, and Mayes Kia) to engage in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud in which they sought to obtain millions of dollars of loan proceeds. The indictment further alleged that the defendants made materially false statements and omissions to lenders about the type, source, and amount of borrowers’ down payments or vehicle trade-ins, and bribed at least one loan officer.
I have a client who is locked out of their admin panel. An attacker has taken over their account and is issuing request for wires to his business contacts, and has already been succesful. Microsoft support can not assist, it's going on 4 days. I'm shocked at this complete lack of ability to solve an issue this rudimentary.
As a silver cloud provider, I've enjoyed (and even today) the fact that I can get a support engineer on the phone within a matter of minutes for any issue under the sun that I come up with in my portal, but those tech support reps as much as they care have no ability to assist with this. I've called MS about 10 times for multiple hours in the last 4 days, this is absurd. Anyone have guidance or a suggestion?
This should serve as a major warning, Microsoft will not prioritize the safety of your account. So hope you are never attacked.
