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66 Comments on If you use email, text, or voice messaging to convey sensitive information, you’d better reconsider the practice.
Great reminder. It is too easy to forget that email, text, etc. is not secure. Look what happend to Anthony Weiner.
I agree with what Broker Bryant posted on this. I will also add that cell phones and cordless phone conversations can be picked up on monitors/scanners, so you can't call those safe modes, either. Everything has it's risks.
Absolutely correct - it's all about professionalism & CYA!
Great warning! We have a responsibility to our clients to keep their info save.... even duirngr routine business practices.
Great reminder. We all tend to use email as it is easy. Some things should be delivered in person and telephone calls of a sensitve matter should be made on a land line phone instead of cells. And true, when someone calls you, you never really know who is at the other end of the line.
Gary (#43) also makes great point about checking what is in rest of string when we forward -- and maybe clearing most of it - in case it gets further forwarded. And as Pamela (#32) says, though daunting at first, the secure process can be very good (we secure our .pdf files that we attach to email which seems to work well).
Good information that we all seem to forget about. The internet is public and if you don't want it out in public places don't put it on the internet! Warning, Warning, Will Robinson.
Richard:
We stress that documentation is so important and that emails should be used to confirm conversations. I still think documentation is important. But talking to your clients about any changes they want to make is also important. Then that conversation can be documented in an email. We just have to be careful about emailing sensitive information and always be mindful about what we are emailing.
Richard, very well said. In my end of the business security is especially important and that's why encrypt and password protect all vital information.
I don't know sounds a little paranoid. You can always reverify a request with a followup phone conversation. My manager will not type anything in an email which is just nonsense. I once had a loan officer accuse me once of not doing what was right in an email. Turned out, she was the one pulling all sorts of stunts & how did we catch her? Emails.
I like the verify, verify message. Thanks for the blog..
Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks for the Heads up! People tend to get to comfortable with email & txting.
Hi Richard,
You're absolutely right. I love digital technology as it saves so much time and what we all like about email, text and voice mail is the fact that they each document the actual time that the message was conveyed for record keeping. BUT, there is no doubt, face to face is best for specific private personal info.
How about when you get a fax at the office with all the personal info (ss#, income, ficos etc) of the buyer/client and it just sits there on the machine because someone forgot to pick it up. Or, there is an earnest deposit personal check of a few tens of thousands of dollars on the scanner from when the agent made a copy of it to submit w/the contract offer.
We must always be very careful with our clients' private info.
Thanks for the post.
Richard,
Great reminders! I do almost every communication by voice (FIRST!) and then follow up with written! I still want to HEAR the spoken word before I'm willing to ACT on the situation! And I NEVER put anything in writing that MIGHT come back to haunt me later!
Great info. Don't think faxes are totally secure either!! Some faxes are routed over microwave signals and sent into computers. Not all Fax numbers are hooked to a physical machine!
Richard - This is definitely something to give careful consideration. And, I think verification makes sense. All that said, I like email for confirming conversations.
Wow! Electronic communications is just becoming so normal it was good to get a post saying, "Think about it." Thank you Richard.
I don't think many agents think about that when it comes to their email. Nothing is secure anymore!
Richard: You've got an excellent point. I especially like the - verify, verify, verify....