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Category: Housing / Consumer Protection / Fraud and Corporate Crime

Online scammers posing as settlement agents target home buyers

12:28 UTC+8 March 30, 2017 | Pamela Medlen

The email scam asked the house buyers to put money into a bank account to finalise the sale. (ABC News: Gordon Taylor)

A father and son buying a property south of Perth have uncovered an email scam that could have cost them $200,000, with authorities saying the con artists employed a trick not seen before.

The men received the email from what looked like their settlement agency asking them to deposit money into a bank account to finalise their house purchase.

However, they noticed the email address was slightly different to their agency's and checked before confirming the request was fake.

Consumer Protection director of property industries Stephen Meagher said the buyers did the right thing by double-checking.

"It appears that the scammers have hacked into somebody's email account and in this case the person clearly had said that they were buying a house," he said.

"The scammers it appears have looked into his account and found out details of the settlement agent he's dealing with, and then they've purported to be the settlement agency and they've asked him to send money to a bank account.

"They were also suspicious that they just get an email out of the blue asking for money."

It was the first time Consumer Protection had heard of a scammers posing as a settlement agent, Mr Meagher said.

"We've certainly heard of cases where people have hacked into email accounts or they've got details off Facebook and then they purport to be a business and try to get money out of somebody," he said.

It has prompted a fresh warning for people to be wary of sharing personal information by email or online.

"One thing we always say is that on your Facebook and [on the internet], don't tell people you're buying a house or selling a house or going on holidays and things like that," he said.

"You just don't want stuff out in the public domain so people know your private business.

"If it's information you're not prepared to post on a bus shelter on St Georges Terrace, don't put it up on Facebook."

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