CRITICAL phishing
Is “business email compromise (BEC)” a scam?
Yes — this is a known, dangerous scam.
A scammer who has compromised a real estate agent, title company, or your own email account sends "updated" wire instructions for your down payment or closing funds. The new account belongs to them. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are gone in minutes.
How to tell
- ⚠ Wire instructions arrive by email and change at the last minute, often the day of closing
- ⚠ The sender's email is close to the real one but with a swapped letter or different domain (e.g. titleco-llc.com instead of titleco.com)
- ⚠ The email asks you to act quickly so 'closing is not delayed'
- ⚠ The new account is in a different state or city than the title company is based in
What to do right now
- 1 Never trust wire instructions sent only by email. Always call to verify, using a phone number from a previously-trusted source — not the number in the email
- 2 Before the wire goes out, confirm the account name, routing number, and account number on the phone with someone you have spoken to in person at the title company
- 3 If you suspect the wire was already sent to a scammer, call your bank immediately and ask them to file a SWIFT recall. The first 24–72 hours give the best chance of recovery
- 4 Also call the FBI's IC3 within 24 hours — they run a Financial Fraud Kill Chain that has recovered wires
- 5 Report to the FTC at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov and the FBI's IC3 at https://www.ic3.gov.
Full guidance, red flags, variants & official sources
Email from "title company" changes wire instructions on closing day →