Wire fraud continues to be a serious threat to real estate industry, netting millions of dollars for cyber thieves every year. The best defense for potential victims is heightened awareness, but too many consumers are unaware or unconcerned by the threat.

To help educate key groups (homebuyers/sellers, professionals in real estate and lending) and raise awareness about the risk and urgency of the problem, ALTA launched the Coalition to Stop Real Estate Wire Fraud, a national effort to fight wire fraud and cyber crime (learn more).

The Coalition has three main goals:

• Raise awareness of wire transfer fraud and educate homebuyers, real estate and mortgage professionals, and policy makers about the urgency of the problem;
• Provide concrete steps that people can take to prevent the risk of fraud; and
• Identify and empower those who have been victimized to tell their story and advocate for solutions.

We recommend you visit their site, stopwirefraud.org, bookmark it for quick access, and share it with your staff and clients. You can also download and distribute ATG's wire fraud handouts.

ATG Agents: Contact us (mention Cyber Crime Questions) if you have any questions about how to protect yourself or your clients from fraud. Thank you again for your continuing support of ATG.