Beth DeCarbo
speaker
144 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2019
last heard Sep 2021
Beth DeCarbo’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
WSJ Your Money Briefing · Real Estate Industry Tries to Solve Its Scammers Problem · 16 Aug 2019
podcast
It's an online portal that authenticates the identities of all the parties in a real estate transaction.
and sends encrypted wire transfer instructions.
So there's nothing done by email.
In addition to Certified, there's a Washington state title and escrow company called Modus that created a secure portal for real estate agents and their clients to transfer earnest money deposits.
And similarly, two other companies, Trust Funds in Minneapolis and Zocum in Dallas,
created ways to bypass emailed instructions and transfer earnest money using apps or portals on their own.
But again, this is mainly earnest money and not the large sums that are involved in a down payment or paying off a mortgage.
That's for sure.
The larger issue is that agents, lenders, and title and escrow companies all across the U.S.
manage transactions differently.
And states themselves have different rules for real estate deals.
There's no standard protocol.
And as a result, consumers have no way of knowing if home sales are handled securely.
As long as real estate professionals handle sensitive business matters using paper, email, phone calls...
they're leaving themselves and their clients vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.
That is certainly key.
Anybody in the transaction needs to verify the closing instructions with the trusted representative either in person or using a predetermined phone number.
But in addition, when there are any kind of instructions sent, pay attention to the email address.
An address like JohnDoeAtABC.com could be confused with a hacker's spoof email like JohnDoeBCD.com.
Also, people should remember to keep their security patches updated, their antivirus software up to date, change their passwords every 90 days, and enable two-step authentication on their email accounts.
Showing 121–140 of 144 · page 7 of 8
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