Today we are joined by special guest Molly O’Dell of Oakwood Escrow, and we were so excited to have her join us. We talked about security, escrow, and what has changed in the last year.
Email hacking is happening in every other industry and around the world, so why wouldn’t it happen in real estate? There is so much money going back and forth and these hackers are getting smart. They are watching the MLS, keeping an eye on pending transactions, then they hack the system and try to steal the buyer’s money via bogus wiring instructions. We’ve heard many horror stories about this kind of thing happening lately.
If your escrow company isn’t savvy enough with their digital security, you could lose your money so easily as a buyer. Encrypted emails may be an extra step and a tad annoying, but it is really worth it. We have to encrypt our emails to make sure that our clients are safe.
“We’ve seen too many buyers get scammed.”
One other thing that Molly thinks is important is to stop emailing wiring instructions. It’s commonly known that this is how hackers have stolen a lot of money in the past few years. At Oakwood Escrow, Molly and her team do not send wiring instructions via email. They can send them over the phone, via fax, or text message. It’s a lot safer than doing it over email.
If you have any questions about the escrow process in the meantime, you can give Molly a call at (619) 889-5639 or send an email to modell@oakwoodescrow.com.
If you have any other real estate related questions for me, don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
