The short version: Criminals hijack or fake email threads and send “updated” wiring instructions right before closing. Agents should never send, forward, or confirm wiring instructions; clients should verify by calling the title company at a number they already know. If it happens, call the bank to recall the wire immediately, file at ic3.gov, and call the title company and your broker.
Every agent should be able to say this sentence from memory, and every client should hear it at least twice before closing:
“For your protection, call your title company directly at a phone number you already know before you wire any money. We will never email you wiring instructions.”
How the scam works
Criminals break into, or convincingly fake, someone’s email: the agent’s, the title company’s, or the lender’s. Then they wait. When the deal is close to closing and money is about to move, they send “updated” wiring instructions that look exactly like the real thing. The buyer wires their down payment to the criminal’s account, and it’s often gone within hours.
It’s getting more convincing. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report flagged AI voice cloning being used to request wire payments, so a phone call that “sounds like” your title officer isn’t proof either.
The numbers
- Business email compromise, the category most stolen closing wires fall under, cost victims more than $3 billion in 2025 across about 24,800 complaints reported to the FBI.
- Texas ranked second in the country for total internet crime losses, at about $1.83 billion.
- The FBI described real cases from 2025, including a buyer who wired more than $449,000 after an email impersonating the closing attorneys.
Agents can be held responsible
In a well-known Kansas case, Bain v. Platinum Realty (2018), a jury put most of the fault for a buyer’s stolen wire on the seller’s agent and her brokerage, and the court entered a judgment of about $167,000, even though the buyer wasn’t her client. Whether or not a Texas court would see it the same way, the lesson is the same: never be the one who sends, forwards, or “confirms” wiring instructions.
The rules we follow
- Never draft, email, text, forward, or “verify” wiring instructions. All wiring conversations happen directly between the client and the title company.
- Give clients a written wire fraud warning early. Texas REALTORS® has one, and its warnings are also built into the listing and buyer agreements.
- Tell clients to verify any instructions by calling the title company at a number they found independently, never one from the email.
- Treat any “change” to wiring instructions as fraud until proven otherwise.
- Use two-factor authentication on your email, and don’t send client documents from public Wi-Fi.
If it happens
- Call the bank’s wire or fraud department immediately and ask for a recall. Minutes and hours matter. The FBI’s recovery process works best the same day.
- File a report at ic3.gov, no matter the amount.
- Call the title company and your broker right away.
Speed matters. In 2025, the FBI’s Financial Fraud Kill Chain froze about $679 million of the $1.16 billion it tried to recover.
Sources
General information, not legal advice. TREC says I can’t practice law, and I like my license. Run your specific situation past your broker or a real estate attorney.
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