By WWLT
The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence technology has proven to be a boon for those in a range of industries, but unfortunately, it has become a powerful tool for criminals as well. As AI-generated photos, sound clips, and videos – known as deepfakes – have become harder to distinguish from the real thing, fraudsters have realized they can use AI tools to impersonate others, including those involved in real estate transactions.
Today, the team at World Wide Land Transfer has more information for you about how AI deepfakes are used by scammers to defraud those involved in real estate transactions, and what you can do to protect yourself from deepfake fraud. If you are looking for title insurance companies in NJ and other areas, rest assured that the team at World Wide Land Transfer will always use every tool at our disposal to ensure you don’t become a victim of real estate fraud.
During a real estate transaction, you will need to submit lots of information that fraudsters would consider valuable. This includes social security numbers, bank routing information, personal data, and more. A scammer might even try to trick you into giving them passwords that they could use to gain access to your bank accounts. They might also impersonate others to convince you to deposit money directly into their accounts.
One way a scammer might accomplish their goals is by using deepfake technology to impersonate someone involved in your transaction, like an employee of your bank, or your real estate agent. In the past, they would have been limited in their approach, trying to use cloned email accounts or spoofed phone numbers to send you texts or emails. Since the public has largely caught on to those tactics, they are no longer as effective. But what if a scammer could create a convincing audio message or even a live video of your real estate agent? It would be much easier for them to fool you.
With AI deepfakes, they can do exactly that. A scammer might train an AI to mimic your real estate agent’s voice, or that of your loan officer at the bank. With this AI model, they could leave messages on your phone that would be indistinguishable from the real person’s voice. They might even be able to alter their voice during a live phone call. AI’s video capabilities are even more concerning. A scammer could potentially use an AI filter during video chats to take on the appearance and voice of a property seller, your loan officer, or anyone else involved in your transaction. Unless you have spent a lot of time studying AI deepfakes, you would have trouble telling them apart from a real video call.
Unfortunately, because AI deepfakes are so new, there are no easy ways to ensure you are not communicating with a scammer. One way is to educate yourself about deepfakes, both audio and video. By familiarizing yourself with AI generated content, you might become better at spotting the hallmark inconsistencies that will be present when deepfake technology is being used. For example, eye movements may appear unnatural, or speech might not line up correctly with mouth movement. AI has trouble accurately replicating these features of human speech and movement. You might also notice glitches in a video feed, or the background might not match what is going on in the foreground.
In addition, AI technology is being used to fight back against deepfakes. Several deepfake detection tools are currently in development that will have the capability to analyze audio and video content in real time so you can verify who you are really speaking to.
Until AI detection tools come into widespread use, it’s always a good idea to be cautious about who you give your information to. If the loan officer from your bank, for example, would call and request your social security number, tell them you will call them back. When you call back using the phone number your loan officer provided to you in person, ask if they called you a few minutes ago. If the answer is no, then you are likely being targeted by a scammer. While you might consider taking steps like this to be inconvenient, having your identity stolen will be infinitely more inconvenient.
When it comes to certain types of fraud in real estate transactions, title insurance companies have always been on the forefront of fighting scammers. Our routine title searches help find fraud and forged documents in title chains.
We also help to fight seller impersonation fraud – one of the most common types of real estate fraud that has been on the rise recently – by verifying that the person attempting to sell a property is the one who actually owns it. We accomplish this by carefully analyzing all available documentation, and as AI technology improves, we will update our own tech to keep pace with the rapidly evolving landscape of fraud detection.
Get in touch with us today for all your title and escrow needs and to learn more about all the ways we work to prevent fraud in real estate transactions.
World Wide Land Transfer is a service-oriented PA title company with offices in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. With a record of going above and beyond, we are trusted to close everything from complex commercial transactions to residential refinance and purchase transactions.
