Texas firm helps Houston man get $84,000 back after mortgage wire fraud scam

Houston man scammed out of $84K in mortgage wire fraud

A Texas firm helped a Houston man get back the money he lost to a fake real estate company while trying to buy a home. He shared his story with FOX 26 consumer reporter Heather Sullivan.

HOUSTON - Imagine trying to buy a house and being scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars you were putting toward your down payment.  

That’s what a Houston man says happened to him.  It's a growing scam.  But in this case, he was actually able to get his money back, thanks to the fast action of an Austin-based recovery firm called CertifID.

Here's how the scam works

What we know:

It's called mortgage wire fraud. 

Investigators say scammers are gleaming information about purchases being made, sometimes by hacking the title or real estate company involved, and emailing the buyer, impersonating one of those businesses.  The scammers ask the home buyers to wire their down payment to a fake account.

The American Bar Association reports that median losses in false mortgage payoff schemes are more than $250,000.

Cory Riddle says this scam happened to him when he was purchasing a home in Houston.

He says that on closing day, a scammer sent him an email that made it look like it was from the title company and duped him into wiring $84,000.  

"I received what I thought were instructions from the title company. It was on their letterhead, it was sent to me.  It appeared to be from the title company's email address that I had been conversing with, and we had been discussing how to make that payment.  It had the exact details of closing, the address, the amount. It all seemed to check out, so I made the wire transfer," said Riddle.

But after talking with his lender, he discovered they never received the money.

What's next:

He says his lender suggested he reach out to an Austin-based fraud recovery company, CertifID, for help.

Texas company helps man regain $84K in mortgage scam

A Houston man was able to get back the money he lost in a wiring fraud sceme thanks to a company based in Austin. A co-founder of CertifID spoke with FOX 26 consumer reporter Heather Sullivan about how they got the money back.

"We have a very strong relationship with federal law enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service in D.C..  In this case, Cory's story tracks so many victims as they approach the home-buying or home-selling process," explained Tom Conkright, co-founder of CertifID.

Riddle explained that because he contacted CertifID within a day of the fraud, they were able to notify federal authorities, which can quickly freeze a suspected account.  Riddle was able to get his $84,000 back.

Conkright stresses that time is of the essence in fraud recovery, so that stolen funds can be frozen and recovered before the scammer removes them from the account.