The real estate industry is getting blasted with viruses and malware so please take the time to be vigilant and make sure you have up to date quality anti-virus software!
I know a lot of people that were hacked via clicking on links that claimed to be important real estate closing documents, but weren't. Fortunately, I have never been caught by that. I know a few local real estate offices who's networks were almost taken down buy that.
There is another scam out there where people are intercepting email addresses and sending fake wire instruction changes for down payments which end up in some account not related to the transaction! This is the modern version of sending letters to people saying their mortgage company has sold their mortgage to a new company so please forward future payments to __________. In that scam, they would wash the checks and rewrite them for other purchases.
Here is a new one that I will telling the Better Business Bureau about so they can let their members know to be careful. I have a Google Alert set up for Boise Real Estate and saw this today:
Looks pretty inviting doesn't it? A nice full featured map that allows you to search our MLS and advanced mapping technology. What could possibly be wrong with that? So I followed Google to . . .
Here are the red flags that should be tipping people off:
- Look at the website extension. It is ".ru" meaning it is a Russian website. Not necessarily a bad thing, but why would they be providing maps of Boise?
- Supposedly, this is a PDF file as an Ebook. How can an ebook in a pdf format search anything? I don't think it can - therefore you probably aren't downloading a pdf! It is probably a virus, trojan or malware!
Sadly, as of this morning, 2,048 people had already downloaded this! I am pretty sure this "map" has been been offered to many different cities around the United States.
Be vigilant and make sure you have great virus protection software!
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