New Jersey Homebuyer Wire Fraud Prevention Checklist

Agree on the payment-verification process early

Ask your attorney or settlement professional how legitimate payment instructions will be delivered and verified. Have that conversation before you are under pressure to meet a closing deadline. Record who is authorized to discuss the instructions and which independently established contact method you will use.

Do not invent a parallel payment process based on a general checklist. Your bank and closing professionals need to explain the procedure for your transaction. The purpose of your preparation is to make their process clear and to identify anything that does not match it, not to replace their controls with an informal arrangement.

Include anyone in your household who may help handle the funds. A careful plan can fail if one person verifies instructions while another responds to a later message without knowing the plan. Agree that an unexpected request will be paused and checked through the established contact, even when the message claims the deadline is urgent.

Build a contact sheet before instructions arrive

Keep a short contact sheet for your attorney, settlement professional, lender and bank. Establish the appropriate numbers independently and confirm them during ordinary conversations. Label each person’s role so you know who can answer a transaction question and who should be contacted about a suspected transfer problem.

The CFPB’s mortgage-closing scam guidance recommends verifying closing instructions in person or through a previously agreed phone number. A number supplied inside a suspicious instruction message is not an independent way to authenticate that same message.

Store your contact sheet securely and make it available when you expect to handle closing tasks. Avoid leaving the only copy inside a long email thread that may be difficult to navigate on a phone. If a legitimate contact changes, establish and confirm the update through a trusted process before using it for payment verification.

Recognize requests that deserve an immediate pause

Unexpected account changes, a new payment method or instructions to avoid speaking with your usual contact deserve careful verification. A message may claim someone is unavailable, a system is down or a transfer must happen immediately. Do not let the explanation substitute for confirming the request through the process you established.

The FBI’s business email compromise guidance includes fraudulent messages appearing to come from a title company and warns about pressure to act quickly. Its examples show why a request can look relevant to a real transaction while still being fraudulent.

Keep the decision simple: if something is unexpected, stop the payment action and contact the known professional independently. You do not need to prove that a message is criminal before asking for verification. A legitimate closing team should be able to address the discrepancy through its established procedure.

Do not authenticate a message by appearance alone

A display name, logo, signature or familiar writing style can make a request feel routine. Treat those as appearance rather than authorization. Accurate details about the property or closing date also do not establish who sent a message. Keep verification separate from how convincing the message looks.

Review the actual sender address and destination links carefully, but do not treat a matching address as your only control. Your established independent contact process remains important. If a message asks you to enter credentials or financial details through an unexpected link, do not use that link to decide whether the request is authentic.

Save the message while you ask the appropriate professional about it. Do not reply with bank details, identification documents or screenshots of your account. A short verification question through a known channel is more useful than sending additional sensitive information to a destination you have not established as legitimate.

Prepare a focused verification conversation

When you contact the known closing professional, explain that you are verifying a payment instruction and ask to follow the organization’s procedure. Have the relevant document available privately. Do not post instructions in a public form or send them to a new contact merely because that contact offers to check them.

Ask which information should be confirmed, who is authorized to confirm it and what documentation you should retain. If the person you reach cannot answer, use the established escalation process. Avoid accepting a new unverified contact as the solution simply because the first call did not connect immediately.

Write down the date, the person contacted and the status of verification without unnecessarily copying account numbers into a general planning notebook. Your bank and closing professional can explain the secure records needed. The planning note should help you remember what remains to do, not create another unsecured collection of financial information.

Treat changes as a new verification event

If you already verified instructions and later receive a change, pause again. An earlier confirmation does not authenticate a new account or revised procedure. Contact the known professional through the independently established channel and ask whether the change is legitimate and how it should be handled.

Keep revised instructions distinct from the earlier version. Ask which document is current and how the old version should be handled under the closing team’s process. Do not rely on memory when several attachments or forwarded messages describe different details. A clear version history helps prevent ordinary confusion as well as fraud.

Include your bank in questions about timing and processing where appropriate. Do not assume that a deadline stated in an unexpected email reflects the bank’s actual requirements. Ask the legitimate professionals to coordinate the timing so urgency does not become a reason to bypass verification.

Protect the accounts used for the transaction

The FBI recommends multifactor authentication where available and caution with unsolicited links and attachments. Apply those precautions to the accounts you use for homebuying communication. Use the account provider’s legitimate settings and help resources rather than a setup link sent in an unexpected message.

Discuss secure document exchange with your lender and attorney. Keep financial applications, identification and payment details within their designated channels. A convenient shared email thread is not automatically the right place for every document. Ask what each recipient actually needs instead of distributing an entire private file to everyone involved.

If you suspect an account has been compromised, contact the account provider through its official process and notify the relevant transaction professionals using a trusted alternative channel. Do not assume changing one visible setting resolves every concern. Ask the appropriate support team about securing the account and reviewing possible unauthorized access.

Use a household checklist for the closing week

Before the busy closing period, review the contact sheet, the agreed verification procedure and the bank’s relevant timing requirements. Identify the person who will handle the payment steps and how others will avoid duplicating the task. Keep your calendar clear enough to make a careful verification call rather than squeezing it between unrelated errands.

Prepare a short list of open items: final amount confirmation, instruction verification, bank coordination and receipt confirmation through the appropriate professional. Ask your closing team which steps apply to your transaction. Mark an item complete only when the required confirmation exists, not when a request was merely sent.

Use reminders that name the action. “Call established settlement contact to verify instructions” is more useful than “wire money today.” A well-worded reminder keeps the verification step visible at the moment you are most likely to feel time pressure.

If you suspect a fraudulent transfer, act immediately

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center’s BEC guidance says to contact the originating financial institution as soon as fraud is recognized and request recall or reversal assistance. Contact your sending bank immediately through a known legitimate channel and explain that you suspect fraud.

Ask the bank what action it can take, what information it needs and how to record the case reference. Notify your attorney and closing team through established contacts. Do not delay the bank call while waiting for a reply to the suspicious email or while trying to resolve the issue with the apparent sender.

File a report through the official IC3 process and preserve relevant evidence for the bank and authorities. Follow their instructions for submitting sensitive details securely. Prompt action may help, but recovery is not guaranteed. Do not assume that filing a report replaces the immediate conversation with your bank.

Preserve an incident timeline without spreading private data

If an incident is suspected, keep the original messages and relevant documents rather than deleting everything in an attempt to clean up. Record the times you received instructions, contacted professionals and notified the bank. Ask the bank and authorities what evidence they require and how it should be provided.

Keep that incident file separate from a general property inquiry. Do not upload bank records to this website or send them to an unfamiliar person claiming to offer recovery help. Use official reporting channels and independently established professional contacts for sensitive information.

Write down each next action and responsible party. A stressful situation can produce several overlapping conversations, so an orderly timeline helps you avoid losing an important follow-up. It is a coordination tool, not proof that funds will be returned or that any particular person caused the incident.

Practice two simple scenarios before closing

First scenario: you receive an email saying the settlement account changed and the funds must be sent within an hour. Your plan should identify the known contact you will call and the payment action you will pause. Do not use the new number inside the message as your independent check.

Second scenario: a message includes the correct address, closing date and a familiar signature, but asks you to sign into a new portal. Your plan should identify the legitimate route you normally use and the professional who can confirm whether the request belongs to the transaction. Accurate details should not remove the verification step.

Discuss these scenarios with anyone helping you. The exercise is not a prediction that your transaction will be targeted. It makes the process easier to follow when a realistic-looking request arrives and you have little time to think through the next action.

Know what each professional can help with

Your bank handles questions about transfers and its response to suspected fraud. Your attorney and settlement team explain legitimate closing procedures and legal concerns. Your lender addresses its own document and funding process. Your agent helps coordinate the property transaction without replacing those responsibilities.

Raied can help you organize the purchase timeline and identify the appropriate professional for a coordination question. Our New Jersey buyer guide and attorney-review questions provide related planning resources. Neither page supplies payment instructions or authenticates a request to move money.

Use the inquiry form below for the town, listing link and a brief property question. Do not include account numbers, passwords, verification codes or wire instructions. If there is a suspected payment incident, contact your bank immediately rather than waiting for a real estate inquiry response.

Make handoffs explicit when someone else helps

If a partner or another authorized person takes over a closing task, explain which steps are complete and which remain open. Share the established contact process through an appropriate private channel. Do not hand off a forwarded instruction email with a message that simply says to handle it, leaving the other person to assume verification already happened.

Use a status note that names the unfinished action: awaiting the known professional’s callback, awaiting the bank’s timing explanation, or awaiting confirmation of the current document version. The note should not contain unnecessary financial details. Clear handoffs reduce ordinary coordination mistakes and help keep the verification routine intact when household schedules change.

Common closing-fund safety questions

Is a familiar sender name enough?

No. Keep independent verification in your process even when a message looks familiar. Ask the known closing professional through the channel established earlier, and do not rely solely on the message’s appearance or accurate transaction details.

What if the request says there is no time to call?

Pause and verify through your established contacts. Ask the legitimate team about the timing concern. Pressure to skip the agreed procedure should not become a reason to send funds without confirmation.

Can this website check my wire instructions?

No. Keep payment verification with your bank and authorized closing professionals. This website form is for a real estate conversation and should never receive your banking credentials, account details or closing-fund instructions.

Research note: Linked CFPB, FBI and IC3 resources support the brief prevention and reporting guidance. The contact-sheet structure, household planning prompts and practice scenarios are original organizational aids. No checklist guarantees prevention or recovery; use your bank’s and closing professionals’ actual procedures.