'My heart sank': This Silicon Valley exec says she accidentally sent her $400,000 down payment to a scammer — now she has a warning for all house-hunting Americans

After beating three other bidders, she wired $400,000 to an account per instructions she received in an email. But it turned out the message asking for the funds wasn’t from the mortgage company. It appears to have been a scammer who somehow intercepted the conversation and spoofed the broker’s email address, according to NBC Bay Area.

With one click, her life savings vanished.

"The day after I funded the wire, the title company reached out to me to set up the signing of the papers, and I asked if they had received the funds," Robillard told the local broadcaster on July 23. "They said ‘no,’ and my heart sank."

Robillard, the Chief People Officer at cloud technology company Tekion Corp., never got to move into the attractive single-family ranch home, built in 1950. It seems to have been relisted and sold for $1.45 million.

After a months-long battle, Robillard was able to recoup her money, according to NBC Bay Area. Now, she wishes her story to serve as a warning to fellow house hunters.

“Why is cybercrime happening to businesses, to individuals, every day, and there’s just not enough protections?” she wondered aloud.

Why all Americans need to be wary

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center says in 2023 it received 21,489 complaints regarding compromised business emails, amounting to $2.9 billion in adjusted losses. These scams target both businesses and customers with fraudulent requests of funds, including for real estate transactions.

Rathbun Insurance describes how property wire transfer fraud like the one that hit Robillard can happen. It’s possible for fraudsters to hijack email addresses via passwords purchased off the dark web, or use phishing techniques to trick employees into entering login credentials. They can then comb through emails to find targets and set up a bogus transfer, either using an agent’s real email account or by spoofing it.

How you can protect yourself

Robillard’s story demonstrates how anybody can be sucked into the cybercrime vortex by increasingly resourceful thieves. No one, sadly, is completely safe. But there are simple steps that can provide strong measures of protection.