When we say Martha Stewart, do you first think of her business empire or her jail time? Given her history, she is one of the most infamous examples of a celebrity completely tainting one of the most valuable assets they have – their reputation.
So, what does your reputation and Martha Stewart have to do with this month’s blog? Everything. As a player in a referral-based, community-driven industry, you NEVER want to see you or your company’s name in any type of negative media storm – or even in a warranted bad online review. While insider trading may be hard to relate to, a potential wire fraud scandal should be one of your fears.
Lisa Steele, a vice president of Placer Title’s parent company, gave a presentation on this very topic last month at a conference for the American Land Title Association that was dedicated to fraud prevention. She said it’s important that Realtors understand that wire fraud is not just a problem for title companies like us, but for everyone involved in the transaction. Lisa also talked about the trainings that our team does for interested real estate agents during this speech. She said two things we also go over is the importance of two-factor authentication – we’ll even show you how to set that up — and mobile security. The latter is an issue that often gets overlooked but considering the number of emails that are now sent from our phones, it is paramount.
Hopefully, some of you out there have gone through these trainings with our caring team, but if not, we’d love to be the experts you need on this subject as well. Contact the Placer Title Company office you rely on the most, and we’ll get something set up for you. We see sharing such information as another way we’re the partners you can trust.
“External training is what we have to do to keep our clients (and their money) safe and protect (everyone’s) reputation,” Lisa said during her presentation. Just one report of you being involved when a customer falls victim to wire fraud could potentially destroy your reputation — whether it was your fault or not. We’ll always be vigilant on this issue (it’s why we write about it so much), but we need your help spreading the word to help keep your buyers and sellers safe from these criminals.