Had a wire hacked during a transaction ...ready to get my money back! ;-)
Hey everyone,
So now that some time has passed, and I got that rental up to par (and the slap across my face has healed ); I am ready to get some help in trying to see if can try and get some of my money back that we believe WellsFargo might still have.
I had a hacker get into my real estate agent's account and posed as my title company last year in which, I dumbly, wired money too. My first heads up should of been that the first wire bounced back, but went ahead and sent another one. By the time the real title company has alerted me that they had not got the funs, I was about to take off for a trip (literally on the plane) At the time, my agent was able to call the bank (WellsFargo) and alert them of the fradulent account of which they then found and closed. Since then both my outgoing bank (which I used to initiate the transfer and tried to do a recall) and WellsFargo - the receiving bank - have been sort of a dead end. WellsFargo refuses to talk to me as they are saying they are 'protecting' their customer - even though we identified it as fradulent.
Not sure if there are any lawyers out there who can help me guide thru the process, but if I could get any money back that would be great. Luckily it wasn't a crazy amount but served as a wake up call. I am what I would say a pretty seasoned investor and had this slip thru and happen. Ready to move on!
Thanks !
K-Man
Quote from @Kuriakos Mellos:
Hey everyone,
So now that some time has passed, and I got that rental up to par (and the slap across my face has healed ); I am ready to get some help in trying to see if can try and get some of my money back that we believe WellsFargo might still have.
I had a hacker get into my real estate agent's account and posed as my title company last year in which, I dumbly, wired money too. My first heads up should of been that the first wire bounced back, but went ahead and sent another one. By the time the real title company has alerted me that they had not got the funs, I was about to take off for a trip (literally on the plane) At the time, my agent was able to call the bank (WellsFargo) and alert them of the fradulent account of which they then found and closed. Since then both my outgoing bank (which I used to initiate the transfer and tried to do a recall) and WellsFargo - the receiving bank - have been sort of a dead end. WellsFargo refuses to talk to me as they are saying they are 'protecting' their customer - even though we identified it as fradulent.
Not sure if there are any lawyers out there who can help me guide thru the process, but if I could get any money back that would be great. Luckily it wasn't a crazy amount but served as a wake up call. I am what I would say a pretty seasoned investor and had this slip thru and happen. Ready to move on!
Thanks !
K-Man
If you are saying Wells has held onto funds that were frozen or can be traced back to the original transaction, you absolutely should pursue getting the funds back. Before you go that route however, I’d ask myself, how can I tend to prove that they have those specific funds, that the bank had a duty to return the funds to me, that the bank didn’t return the funds, and that you were damaged as a result. If you can’t answer any of those questions, legal action may be futile.
@Blake B. thanks for the note: I was flying when my team was calling the bank. They never confirmed there was any money in the account, rather they identfiied it and closed it. Everytime I've called they obviously blocked me from learning more. I think my agent said you can do something called an injunction to do more digging? (Again not a lawyer here ;-)
What does the originating bank that you sent the funds from say about the transactions? Can they confirm funds were transferred from your account to another?
What does the originating bank that you sent the funds from say about the transactions? Can they confirm funds were transferred from your account to another?
Well I think the first question is did you file a police report, have the case investigated, and had a judge determine that those funds (if any) indeed belong to you? If not then WF is doing exactly what they should, protecting their, innocent until proven guilty, customer.
If you haven't started the above yet, then I think your first call needs to be to the police and file a case report. Then you can consider a civil suit to adjudicate the return of the funds.
Chance of getting the funds back after ten days .001% Sorry it's a very bad batting average.
You signed the agreement to wire twice. Wire fraud is VERY COMMON.
Why was the money in Realtor's account? NEVER give authority to someone else to handle the transfer.
Here are the sources how they hack you:
You announce on a public forum you are doing a transaction,
You have credit pulls and you use the same email address with lender and settlement/attorney. ANY decent lender knows not to send your correct email to order a mortgage credit report as your information is sold and picked off by other lenders and fraudsters, but yours gave away the keys.
You email through realtor IDX website,
You don't have a secret personal email that you change the complex password often. Change the passwords during the transaction.
You use your junk email with Realtor and settlement agent,
When you start the transaction you fail to call escrow/attorney to verify the bank account number and routing to wire. This account number rarely changes.
Fail examine an incoming email address. If you attempt to reply you note the email is similar but off by a number or dot.
You use same password for accounts and email or simple guessable passwords. I'm not a believer that dual sign in does anything to protect you, they probably can spoof your phone number as well.
You text private transactional information.
You give your date of birth, social security number freely without caution.
You have not checked sites that verify what information about you is online.
Your only recourse is to file suit but you cannot blame your bank for following your instructions. You need paperwork evidence that Wells has the money somewhere and they are part of the fraud, or an employee of the bank is part of the theft. The FBI has thousands of these cases. If it's a year ago, they won't follow up now.