When conveyancer Shelley Baker asked her client a standard question on settlement day, she didn't expect it to save them nearly $200,000.
Ms Baker, who works for Nest Legal in Melbourne, casually asked if the seller had provided their bank details to the real estate agent.
The seller said no, despite the fund transfer being just hours away.
"That immediately raised some concerns for us, so we asked the client to call the real estate agent immediately to confirm and provide their bank account details," Ms Baker told AAP.
"Someone pretending to be our client had already emailed bank account details to the agency."
Worse still, the scammer had called that morning to chat to agency staff, mentioning the transacting parties, the property address, nearby landmarks and even their favourite local cafe.
"Thankfully, because our client had called, we were able to stop that transaction from taking place, probably about two hours before settlement was due," Ms Baker said.
"Which resulted in around $200,000 not going to a scammer."
While many scams depended on intercepting emails, fraudsters are increasingly mining social media for buyers and sellers, or using artificial intelligence to draft professional-looking communications and clone voices.
"The traditional warning signs people associated with scams are no longer always present," Ms Baker said.
A recent survey from property settlement company PEXA found more than two in five Australians couldn't detect any scam markers in a test email.
A staggering 99 per cent couldn't spot a fraudulent email address even when told the document was a scam.
Property settlement scams are listed by Scamwatch as payment redirection scams.
They cost Australians $166.8 million in 2025, up more than nine per cent from 2024.
In response, auctioneers often take deposits at the property after the auction, while conveyancing firms and real estate agents increasingly use secure platforms with multi-factor authentication like PEXA Key or Securexchange for settlement transactions.
On the buyer and seller side, the prevention measures were decidedly low-tech.
"It doesn't matter what you get in writing, ring up and verbally confirm those details using a number you saved on your phone," Ms Baker said.
"Walk into the real estate agent, speak to the receptionist, Google the firm on online, and grab the contact details that way."
Discussing exactly what to expect was also key, PEXA chief information security officer Graham Fairley said.
"Having those conversations up front and agreeing around that communication with your conveyancer or a property professional is really a worthwhile approach," he told AAP.
Any efforts to rush the transaction should be viewed with extreme caution.
"Be mindful of the sense of urgency within that is contained within the comms itself," Mr Fairley said.
"Property professionals won't be injecting a sense of urgency - it is not the standard way of communicating."
