You found the home. Your offer was accepted. You are days away from closing. Then you get an email with wiring instructions for your earnest money deposit.
You wire the money. And it goes straight to a criminal.
This is not a hypothetical. It is happening in Portland right now. And it does not only happen to buyers.
Sellers Are Targets Too
Buyers lose earnest money deposits. Sellers lose closing proceeds. The scam works the same way on both sides of the transaction.
You are a seller. Your home just closed. You are expecting a wire transfer of your proceeds, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. You receive an email that looks like it is from your title company with updated account information for where to send the funds. Except the email is fake. The account belongs to a criminal. And your proceeds are gone.
Both buyers and sellers need to treat every wire instruction with the same level of scrutiny.
The Local Reality
A Portland woman nearly lost $200,000 in a real estate wire transfer scam. She caught it only because she made one last-minute phone call to confirm the wiring instructions. That phone call saved her. Not everyone is that lucky.
The Oregon Department of Justice has issued warnings calling real estate wire fraud one of the fastest-growing cybercrimes in the state. In another Oregon case, buyers lost $379,000 in a single wire transfer. Some of it was eventually recovered. Most wire fraud money is not.
Nationally, a 2025 report found that first-time buyers are three times more likely to fall victim to wire fraud than experienced buyers. One in four buyers reports receiving a suspicious message during a transaction. One in twenty actually falls for it.
How It Works
The scam is sophisticated. Criminals monitor email threads related to real estate transactions. When they see a ratified purchase contract, they spoof an email address that looks nearly identical to your title company, escrow officer, or agent. The email arrives with updated wiring instructions. It looks completely legitimate. The urgency feels real. You wire the money.
By the time anyone realizes what happened, the money is gone.
The Rules We Follow at Lovejoy
We talk about this with every buyer and seller before it becomes relevant. Here is what we tell them.
Wire instructions will never change at the last minute. If you receive an email with updated wiring instructions, assume it is fraud until proven otherwise. Call us immediately using a phone number you already have, not one in the email.
Never act on wire instructions from email alone. Always confirm verbally with your escrow or title officer using a phone number from their official website, not from any email.
Confirm the receiving account before anything moves. Call the title company directly and read the account number back to them out loud.
Sellers: confirm where your proceeds are going before closing day, not the morning of. Know the account details in advance so a last-minute email does not catch you off guard.
Use escrow. Earnest money should always go to a reputable escrow or title company, never directly to a seller or broker.
If Something Feels Off, It Probably Is
Scammers create urgency. They tell you the window is closing, the seller is getting impatient, the funds must be sent today. That pressure is a tactic. A legitimate title company will always give you time to verify.
If you are ever uncertain about wiring instructions during a transaction with Lovejoy, call us directly before you do anything. We would rather slow down a closing than watch a client lose their down payment or their proceeds.
The Bottom Line
Wire fraud in real estate is not a distant problem. It is happening in Portland neighborhoods, to real buyers and sellers, on real transactions. The good news is it is almost entirely preventable with one habit: verify before you wire. Every time. No exceptions.