Now the only person who can comfort Kevin and Nicole Noal, is their infant son Declan.
«We can’t sleep,» says Nicole. «I have so many feelings. Worse in the morning because you Wake up and realize that all this is real. Just want to Wake up and find out that it never happened».
The life of the couple turned into a nightmare after just a few days after they believed that they had achieved the American dream.
They live with relatives in the city of Solana beach County of San Diego, California, although it is thought that he bought a dream house in the nearest town of carlsbad, where they wanted to ensure a happy childhood for Declan. «All of this for him,» says Nicole. «House with garden, schools nearby, and so he had a little brother or sister.»
But instead they pay for a house in the amount of $775 million – 60% of the purchase price of the house – was in the hands of a hacker with the account in Singapore.
Nicole is a nurse, and Kevin – chef, so they were hoping that moving to a private house slightly reduce their expenses. A pair of hard-earned money. Something has got to them by inheritance. «This is literally all the money we had to buy a house. We were supposed to be low mortgage payment that we could afford,» explains Nicole.
The girl said that she started getting emails from a hacker who was represented by the employees of the escrow company and real estate agent, who was away at the funeral. Kevin said that e-mails were sent with duplicate signatures and addresses after clicking the link seemed to be the contacts in their phones.
Escrow agent is a physical or legal person who temporarily holds documents, money and other materials on behalf of the two parties entering into the contract. In fact, the agent acts as a mediator, a neutral person who facilitates the conclusion of agreements between the parties.
Now the pair is especially mad at my escrow company, alleging that the employee had sent them an official payment instruction via email using unprotected address. The instructions were not the account number, but the couple believes that a hacker has intercepted a letter, made a copy of the document and sent back with an account number for bitcoin exchange.
The pair took the document to the Bank, where nobody guarded an account for a bitcoin exchange. After the transfer of money Nicole called the escrow company, which, as she believed, she transferred the money, but there are not raised the alarm, but had to know they didn’t send her account where to transfer the money. «They called me back just to tell what time tomorrow will the notary to sign the documents.»
Now, a couple ponders the possibility to file a claim, so I asked not to call their escrow company. They also contacted the FBI. The FBI said that the people of California – the main purpose of this type of fraud. Many escrow companies warn never to take payment instructions by email and say that future homeowners to call agents on the phone. In addition, you should redirect all emails escrow agent, and not click «reply» without even looking at the address. Escrow companies typically send payment instructions via a secure email address, so the user in an ordinary letter should alert you.
