It’s Take Five Week – a national campaign led by UK Finance to provide simple and unbiased advice that can help prevent email, phone, and online fraud. The focus is on cases where fraudsters pretend to be trusted organisations, such as law firms.
During Take Five Week we are raising awareness of Friday Afternoon Fraud. Scammers often target people who are in the process of moving house, since property transactions often involve large sums of money.
Scammers trick clients into sending deposit money to them instead of you, the lawyer. This can result in the loss of a house deposit, and your client may lose the opportunity to move into their dream home.
The term “Friday Afternoon Fraud” is used because most fraud attempts occur on Fridays, which is typically the busiest day for completing transactions. As a result, there is greater stress and a higher likelihood of mistakes. Fraudsters exploit this pressure to trick law firms or their clients into sending money to the wrong account.
In this article, we share five measures you can take to reduce the chances of a conveyancing matter being targeted by fraudsters, and in doing so protect your clients and your firm.
1) Check if your client has been Pwned
As part of your process when receiving instructions from a new client, it would be good practice to check whether any of their personal information has been compromised in a data breach by visiting haveibeenpwned.com.
If someone else knows their email account password, there is a chance that scammers may be able to see your communications during the transaction.
Please be aware that if your company sends emails to clients to provide access to a secure portal, there is a risk that fraudsters may intercept these emails and gain access to the portal. This is why it is also important to implement multi-factor authentication for clients.
2) Beware of evil twins
To decrease the likelihood of email interception and tampering, avoid utilising public Wi-Fi connections (e.g. those found in cafes and on trains) when sending or receiving emails.
On a similar note, be suspicious of:
- any new Wi-Fi networks appearing in your office with the name of your firm as its Network ID
- a new process appearing as part of your firm’s WiFi login procedure which may be an evil twin attack)
Ideally, your company should have a policy that prohibits non-work devices from accessing the same network used by office devices. This policy should prevent the personal smartphones of staff, laptops of clients and visitors from connecting.
3) Advise your client not to post about their purchase
It’s a reality that some criminals pay close attention to social media. They target individuals who are in the process of buying or selling a property. To protect your clients and help ensure a safe transaction process, it is essential to advise them against sharing the details of their property purchase on social media or elsewhere online.
This includes anything related to when the transaction will be completed, and even posting that they have instructed your firm to handle their conveyancing. Taking proactive steps such as these can help prevent your client and their transaction from becoming a fraud target.
4) Question well-written emails
Identifying fraudulent emails sent to your law firm used to be quite simple as they were often poorly written and included requests from fake princes for short-term loans.
Fraudsters are now able to create believable stories for why money needs to be transferred quickly by taking advantage of AI writing tools that can generate convincing narratives using a handful of “trustworthy” facts and the abundance of online information about individuals.
When you receive an email related to money or bank details from a client, agent, or colleague, take a moment to consider if it could be a potential scam, before acting on it.
5) Review your policies and procedures for sharing your bank details
Although the message that your firm’s bank details should never be sent via email is not new, some firms still believe that sending their bank details as a PDF attachment is a safer alternative. However, this is not the case.
It is recommended that you share your bank details with your client in a secure manner at the beginning of the transaction. To add an extra layer of security, you can ask your client to make a small initial payment to you using those bank details and confirm your receipt of the payment to them.
By providing those details now, they will be saved for any future larger payments. During the confirmation step, you can remind the client that your bank details will remain the same throughout the transaction and warn them about potential fraudsters who may target them during the process.
Conclusion
During Take Five Week, we have been providing information for lawyers and their clients on how to protect themselves from Friday Afternoon Fraud – an ever present problem in our industry.
Everyone at your firm has a vital role to play in making sure that any scams targeted at conveyancing firms can be stopped. To do this, it is essential to know what the risks are, and what steps you can take to mitigate them.
The five measures described above can help reduce the chances of a conveyancing matter being targeted by fraudsters, and in doing so protect your clients and your firm.
About the Author
This article was written by Matt Pennington of Safe Capital, who are UK Legal Tech Association members (UKLTA). The UKLTA is building a community where lawyers and tech providers can come together to improve access to legal services through technology. You can find out more at www.uklta.org.uk.
Safe Capital helps law firms safely and securely share their bank details with clients, obtain client bank details, and process payments – mitigating the risk of Friday afternoon fraud for the firm and its clients. You can find out more at www.safecapital.co.uk.
This article was submitted to be published by UKLTA. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Conveyancer.
