<div>Our names are Pat &amp; Marisa Lawlor. We started this Fundraiser to recover our life savings and to share with you what happened to us.
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<div>Real Estate Wire Fraud is a Cyber Crime by which criminals engage in defrauding real estate customers of money intended for deposits or down payments by pretending to be Escrow Officers, Title Agents, Lenders or Realtors by communicating Wire Transfer Instructions via email.
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<div>Over the last few years criminal enterprises have zeroed in on the real estate industry since wire transfers are commonplace &amp; the transaction amounts are high. Since 2020 the real estate industry has experienced massive growth in wire fraud with some studies citing a 2000% increase, particularly since the pandemic which caused more &amp; more financial transactions to be conducted online. 
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<div>This massive growth in Real Estate Wire Fraud over the last several years has obligated many real estate professionals &amp; companies to reimagine their approach to protecting their clients which has resulted in practices that have set a new standard in the real estate industry. 
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<div>Some examples of these practices include adding a wire fraud warning in the email signatures of agents and escrow officers, increasing insurance coverage to cover wire fraud losses or carrying separate cyber crime insurance, implementing two factor authentication practices on wire transfer instructions, and omitting complete account numbers from wire transfer instructions thus forcing bankers to call escrow officers on behalf of the customer to obtain the correct information before sending their money. 
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<div>While many reputable escrow companies have been vigilant on setting new industry standards to protect clients from wire fraud, there are plenty who are still operating their business with a low standard of practice. Unfortunately for us we were involved in an escrow with a second-rate company chosen by the seller.
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<div>Here’s what happened:
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<div>Last year we were very fortunate to find ourselves as first time buyers, purchasing a home in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles.  
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<div>After our offer was accepted we opened escrow &amp; during the escrow process our down payment was stolen by criminals who were impersonating our escrow officer.
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<div>We lost over $160,000.
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<div>Criminals hacked into our escrow officer’s email by way of Business Email Compromise &amp; engaged in social engineering, learning of the address of the property, closing disclosure amounts, &amp; the timeline of our escrow including the closing date. 
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<div>On the Friday before closing I received an email containing wire instructions from a criminal who I believed to be my escrow officer and after calling him, &amp; then emailing him to confirm the amount, I went to the bank &amp; wired the money. 
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<div>A week later I received the real email from my real escrow officer to wire our down payment. The email format was virtually identical. That’s when we found out that we had been defrauded of our life savings. 
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<div>The experience was traumatic and absolutely devastating. I couldn’t believe it was real while it was happening. I immediately went to my local bank where I had wired the money from &amp; filed a fraud claim &amp; a recall claim &amp; while that started a short process of reporting the fraud with them &amp; the receiving bank. They made it clear that there was nothing they can do to help us get our money back. 
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<div>I went to the LAPD &amp; filed a police report. I filed a complaint with the FBI, the department of financial protection &amp; innovation, &amp; other consumer agencies that monitor fraud &amp; cyber crime.  
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<div>During the process of doing this I thought to myself – it’s only money – it could be much worse. People are losing loved ones or have ill health. This is just material stuff. But, the feelings were the same. It was horrible. We worked for that money &amp; saved it &amp; then it was just gone. 
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<div>I reached out to someone we’re close to for advice. I told him what happened &amp; asked him what we should do? He replied I’m so sorry this happened to you guys. He offered to loan us the money to get the house. He said we love you guys. You don’t deserve this. Get the house. Do it for your family.
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<div>We were able to get the house. From the minute our money was stolen we were surrounded by love by family, friends, &amp; people who didn’t even know us. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to move forward with love &amp; support from friends &amp; family.
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<div>We’ve started a gofundme in hopes to get back the money that was stolen from us. If you’re unable to help with a donation, we hope you will send this video to anyone you know who might benefit from our experience. 
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<div>Please forward it to as many people as you can so that it may serve as caution to anyone who might be buying a home, especially for their first time or if this video finds its way to anyone who is going through or has been through this same situation so they can see that they are not the only ones going through this. 
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<div>This is happening at an alarming rate. If you know anyone who is in this situation please have them feel free to reach out to me through this campaign. I’ve received a very expensive education in real estate wire fraud &amp; would be happy to share any experience I can if it would help in any way.
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Jaivir Baweja

Kelly Collard

Justin Ross

Sara Showkatian

Anonymous

Polina Jordanova

Scott Jay Burch

Manu Bhogadi

Dan Nguyen

Drew Delzeith

Oleksandr Akhtyrskiy

Dennis Frankio

paul dimino

Scott Schober

Cale Thomas

Renae Barodte

Joel Postorino

Real Estate Wire Fraud Recovery

platform

Platform is iOS

Android

Adyen Google Pay Development Audience

$opt_dummy_attribute

English only

Deprecate Stripe Legacy

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Adyen V6 Bene Transfer & MyMoney Campaign Organizers - test01

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OneTrust next-app audience

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NextDoor Share Option Users

Fundraisers with Reactions feature capability

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fund country is US and user language is English

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Money Box Donation List Prompt Experiment Audience

GoFundMe Employees

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Mark Rieth IP Address

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Fund is in English speaking country

desktop

Android v12.11.0 and above

Platform is Android

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checkoutType

Payment method type group to be vaulted on success

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EUR Donation Upsell

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Payment Identity Transfers ATO Risk Check (Targeted) - Production

Fundraiser Saved Payment Method Rate Limit Bypass (Production)

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Version 9.2.1 and above

AUD Donation Upsell audience

fundraiserCountryCode is US/EN

Active Fundraiser - Smart Default Cadence

DAF Internal

Vault on success card payment method

Platform is iOS v11.0.0 and above

Desktop users

Person ids

United States (US) users

allow yuno fundraisers for test

Mexico country code

Posters INTL

NPO Profile Opted-In

iOS at or above 12.4.0

non-US recurring donors

Canada Campaign Owner Group

Fundraiser Without Meta Link

Scheduler payment tester gorup

charityCommunityId

Charities allow to be claimed unclaimed (PRD)

Canada (CA) users

UC Tipping v20250115 International

pymk_production_xplr_fe_team

Android at or above 12.2.0

Profile photo entry point audience

smart goals (fundraiser/manage) on test01

Activity Tracking v1 Beta Testing

start gfm intl allowed locales

Platform is iOS v11.2.0 and above

NPO upsell education category

unclaimed charities

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AI Chatbot Audience

amp13 only new funds (prod) (anyword auto)

UC Flow Enabled (Prod)

Payment Identity Beneficiary Verification - Production

shared notification bell audience

Custom users

ach frontend audience

Android v11.0.0 and above

Users Receiving Payments Paused Notifications

smart goals test01

Manage Coach - US English Organizers Only + new funds only

Team EGG - IP Address list

NPO recommendations prod

Fundraiser Without Instagram Deep Link

Native 11.4.0 and above

UC Tipping v20250107

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Native 11.4.0 and higher

New funds eligible - Video Sharing (PROD)

GB Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks V3 Rollout Audience

Thank you V3 testing whitelist

isRecurringFriendly

Is Recurring Friendly

Excluded funds - Video Sharing

NPO upsell animals category

NPO upsell disaster relief category

Logged In Users

CH Donation Upsell audience

Android v10.6.0 and above

NPO upsell essential needs category

NPO upsell medical category

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Localized Currency

NPO upsell cancer category

v11.5.0 and above

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Survicate

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challenge-fundraisers

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CAD Donation Upsell Audience

Braze Email Tester

NPO Profile Opted-Out

iOS App Version

hasKnownDonors

PYMK has donors

iOS v12.3.0 and above

Real Estate Wire Fraud Recovery

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