Howard Mollett, 40, was tricked by a fraudster into transferring £67k by posing as his solicitor via email. The fee was being transferred as part of the conveyancing process in buying his first home, a one-bed flat in Brixton.
This type of fraud is becoming more common in this area of law. It occurs when criminals intercept emails between the client (the homebuyer or homeseller) and their solicitor. The fraudster will then generate a fake email pretending to be one of the parties, asking the other to transfer a sum of money (usually very large in property buyer and selling) into the new bank account.
Once the money is in the fraudster’s account, the account itself is drained of all money.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been at the forefront of warning law firms about this type of attack. They have made repeated warnings to law firms to inform clients about this threat since February 2014.
In December 2016, the SRA noted that conveyancing fraud was the most common type of fraud in the legal sector. It suggested that 25% of firms had been targeted.
Cybercrime on the increase
The news comes as crime rate figures doubled due to cybercrime being included in the statistics count for the first time, raising the figure by 107%. Cyber criminals, it is reported, stole £10.9bn from UK residents in the last year, with 39% of people who were questioned saying they did not even report the crime.
In addition, the police recently admitted that one in three cases of this type of conveyancing fraud is not looked at. “Insufficient lines of inquiry” mean that information is not acted on, where detectives are not confident the investigation will result in a conviction.
Our Promise and Recommendation
The increase of this type of crime means that law firms and their clients need to be more aware than ever about the potential threat of fraudsters online.
At Jackson Lees, we provide clear communication throughout the conveyancing process and ensure all correspondence is handled promptly and professionally. We will not confirm a change of bank details by email, and encourage all clients who have been asked to do so to inform our firm immediately.
We cannot stop astute fraudsters from hacking emails, despite our best efforts. We would urge our clients to be vigilant in checking communication and if anything seems out of the ordinary to contact us in the first instance.
If you need any advice regarding buying or selling a property, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly conveyancing team. Please click here for a call back or message us your enquiry.