13 Investigates: Pasadena police have urgent warning against mortgage fraud after woman lost $77,000

LEAGUE CITY, Texas (KTRK) -- Julie Voss went through her inbox and counted 220 emails she had received from her mortgage broker, real estate agent, and title company during the one month before she made a down payment on her dream home.

Among all those emails, Voss said there was one from a fraudster posing as her mortgage broker and asking her to wire $77,500 for the down payment on her new home.

"I have attached the wiring instructions to the escrow account," the June 4 email read, which was deceptively signed using the real name of someone from the actual mortgage company she had been working with.

Voss said the email included the exact amount her broker previously told her she owed. Just like every other email she received during the home-buying process, it was sent to both her and her husband, so she didn't suspect anything suspicious.

Now, she said, based on the details included in the fraudulent email, she thinks her mortgage broker was hacked.

"The timing was impeccable," Voss said. "My mortgage broker had already said that the title company was going to want the down payment in advance and that there would be wiring instructions coming my way and then he sent the email to the title company saying, please send the wiring instructions and then they came (in the fraudulent email)."

Voss said she didn't learn that she wired the money to the wrong person until a week later when she got a phone call from her title company on the day she was supposed to close on the house.

"They sent me the closing statement, and I said, 'OK, but I already wired the $77,500.' They said, 'Where did you send it? We don't have that.' And immediately they picked up the phone and called me and said, we think that you may have fallen victim to wire fraud," Voss said. "I thought I was going to throw up."

Last year alone, the FBI says Americans were scammed out of $2.9 billion through emails that victims thought were from legitimate sources.

Since the bank where Voss wired the money was in Pasadena, its local police department picked up the case.

Detective Jonathan Jernigan, with Pasadena Police Department's Financial Crimes unit, said, unfortunately, he wasn't surprised by the case.

Jernigan said as shocking as it may seem to lose $77,000 to a scam, that's actually on the lower end of what he's seen stolen from victims.

"I've seen $100,000. Nothing shocks me, really. It's just very sad, and I will do my best to try to help," he said. "Technology the way it is aids us, but also aids the criminals at the same time."

He said investigating financial crimes could take months or years depending on how long it takes to get records back from financial institutions or if they have to refer the case to another agency because the fraudster is out of state.

"Within the state of Texas, we have a lot more leeway, and a lot more agencies are willing to help us out. What we need to really find is where that information or where that call originated from, and even that's difficult sometimes," Jernigan said. "We got to, in some ways, prove who was actually behind the phone, who was behind the IP address, who owns the IP address where this information was coming in. It could have been a public IP address, it could have been a hijacked one. It gets very complicated."

Jernigan said he encourages residents always to be vigilant to protect themselves and their money.

"Don't be afraid to confront whoever you're talking with on the email. Don't be afraid to validate and try to vet these people," he said. "Don't just assume that an email coming through is legitimate. We get emails all the time saying you've won this, you've won that. Just be very vigilant, scrutinize every email, every phone call."

For example, he said if you receive an email that seems legitimate but you want to talk to someone to confirm that it is, don't just call the number or extension listed on the email.

He said you should call whoever you've been communicating with before receiving the email or any main office number you previously had for the company you know is legitimate.

He said that although it's human nature to be trustworthy and believe the best of people, it is also important to be skeptical these days to ensure that you're not taken advantage of when sending someone money.

"Verify the email, verify, verify, verify. Just be vigilant. That's all you can really do," he said. "Technology is made for us to help us in the world, but it also opens ourselves up for a lot of criminal activity as well."

He said in these types of cases, it's not likely the victim will ever get their money back, but their hope is to hold the fraudster criminally responsible.

"I've had family members affected by this. I remember I was a victim of identity theft when I was younger, so I know how it can affect your lives. I know how people are vulnerable," he said. "We have a lot of elderly people in our society these days and they're being taken advantage of daily, and it just breaks my heart that they're losing their life savings, and they're embarrassed, and they don't want to talk to their family and for every report that we have come across our desk, I guarantee it's probably 10 out there that don't report it."

In Voss' case, Jernigan said he now knows the money ended up in Central California and the case is being transferred to the local police department there. He said the fraudsters withdrew the money under the guise of a fake company. He said the fake company used the name of a real company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Voss said, like most people, she doesn't just have $77,500 lying around, but she was able to purchase the League City home using money she recently received from her mother's estate after she died earlier this year.

"I felt like when we moved in here, there was this huge dark cloud hanging over our house," she said. "I am grateful that no one was hurt. I have a friend whose son was murdered for his watch. There are so many things that I'm grateful for. I'm grateful that I had the money that we could close on the house, but it's still like grieving because you feel victimized. I had never been, fortunately, the victim of a crime and now I understand how people feel. It is tragic and it makes you feel unsafe and every email I get, every phone call I get, I question. It's like I've kind of lost trust in people being good."

Voss said she maybe would have expected her 97-year-old grandmother to fall victim to a scam, but never thought she would.

"Fraud can happen to anyone. I have done all kinds of phishing email training, and I'm very aware of what a scam looks like. I don't think I realized how good a scam can be," she said. "For anybody who's buying a home or wiring money anywhere, make sure you get the wiring instructions in person and don't take anything over email."

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