Email scams cost Australians millions of dollars a year. Recently, Jane Fleming paid an invoice for $51,000, only to find her money had gone into a scammer’s account. Unfortunately, for the property industry, cybercrime is reported every ten minutes in Australia, which means property funds have the attention of scammers.
While the exact level of activity in the property industry is very hard to quantify, there are ways to protect yourself and your clients from scammers including using, smart and secure technology.
“The transparent nature of the property industry and documentation and contract requirements makes it more vulnerable. Every transaction gets listed on a major listing site, so every property in market and their agent is available for everyone to see, including the scammers.” Said Lee Bailie, Head of Securexchange, a secure and collaborative workspace for property deals.
Recently, Lee was interviewed for Ticker TV where he shared his own experience in buying a property. “When I bought a block of land, I worked out that I received about 27 emails and had around 35 documents that I had to review and sign, from the agent, lawyers and the bank. This equates to a lot of opportunity for fraudulent activity, even with things like two-factor authentication.”
Securexchange, which has won multiple business awards, invites known parties into a secure workspace to complete the actions needed for a property sale. Multi-factor authentication by SMS confirms everyone accessing the Securexchange workspace is verified.
It is in the one collaborative workspace that Securexchange allows you to quickly and securely negotiate, sign and exchange contracts of sale. Emily Grainger from Biggin & Scott Casey in Victoria has found that Securexchange saves the sales team “hours each day that were previously wasted due to printing contracts, scanning and client meetings to sign and exchange contracts.
“Securexchange also provides a safe, secure and seamless way to provide bank account details for deposits as well as settlement funds which has assisted our admin and accounts teams also when handling funds and dealing with solicitors/conveyancers. It really is a one stop shop for real estate agents, legal representatives, vendors and purchasers to all work from one place and be notified during each transaction from start to finish.”
