Property fraud losses rose 58% in a year

Why this case matters

A 58% jump in a single year, on a category that had been flat, is unusual enough to be worth explaining.

The likeliest driver is not the rental version. Rental scams are high-volume and low-value: a deposit and a month’s rent, typically a few thousand dollars. They do not move an aggregate by $100 million in twelve months.

The completion-payment version does. A single successful wire-fraud interception at closing takes an entire deposit — frequently a household’s whole savings — and average loss per complaint rose from about $18,500 to about $22,200 alongside the volume increase.

The two crimes in one category

Rental fraud takes a deposit for a property the “landlord” does not control. Listings are copied from genuine adverts, the reason for not viewing is prepared in advance, and the money goes by transfer.

Completion fraud is business email compromise pointed at the biggest payment most people ever make. An attacker sits inside a compromised mailbox — often the conveyancer’s or the estate agent’s — and sends revised payment instructions at exactly the right moment in a real transaction.

The second is where the money is, and it is the one that is genuinely hard to defend against, because nothing about the message is wrong except the account number.

Reading it honestly

These are reported losses to IC3 and are a floor. Property fraud is also likely under-reported in a particular way: the completion variant is frequently handled first as a dispute between the buyer, the conveyancer and their insurers, and may never reach a national reporting centre at all.

What it tells you about the scheme

The defence is the same as in any BEC and it has to be stated as a rule rather than a suggestion: bank details for a property payment are confirmed by voice, on a number you already held, before the money moves. Never a number in an email, and never by replying to the thread — the attacker may be reading it.