A timely warning of the need to confirm changes of details for owners.

Recently an agent in Mandurah WA, who managed a property on behalf of a South African owner, received an email from a party claiming to be the owner of the property and requested that their details be updated to reflect changes in contact detail s, the agent duly changed the contact email address the agency had on file.

Some two weeks later, a request to sell the property was received by the agent subsequently agreements were signed with forged signatures, from the fraudulent party who was claim ing to be the owner, and exchanged electronically. The agent then listed the property for sale.

Shortly after listing the property an offer was made on the property and accepted by the fraudulent owner.

The agent then sent the sale documents to the real owner's address in South Africa by post, fortunately for all parties the fraudsters had only changed the email address and not the real owners physical address that the agent had on file.

In a statement the WA Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Anne Driscoll, said "Unfortunately these fraud attempts will undoubtedly continue, so all agents need to be vigilant at all times and have the processes in place to detect these fraud attempts at an early stage, real estate agents cannot afford to let their guard down when it comes to these fraud attempts.

Ms Driscoll further added "It is an essential part of the identity verification procedures for any change of contact details by an owner to be confirmed by the real estate agency by sending a notification to the original  addresses, both physical and electronic, that are on file. This will alert the real owners at an early stage if their details are being changed fraudulently,"

We at Barclay MIS are seeing more and more attempts at ID fraud Australia wide. For regular on going updates regarding ID Fraud like our Facebook page, Twitter and linked.