Nothing seemed out of place about the lead.
A vacant infill lot, in a heavily desired neighborhood in Iowa City, Iowa. The seller lived out of town and worked in the medical field. He wanted $200,000 and to close quickly. His previous agent couldn’t close the deal, or so he said.
Luxury real estate agent Adam Pretorius was excited about the listing and dove into research. Pretorius and the seller communicated by phone, through text and email about the process, compensation and the marketing plan.
“We list the property, then, I get a call seven hours later from the actual seller,” Pretorius recalls. “He says, ‘I’m not selling my property; [you’re] being duped.’”
This wasn’t the first time, or even the second. This was the third time this property had been targeted. Pretorius was the third agent to fall victim.
Pretorius recalls the emotional rollercoaster, from embarrassment to hubris to acceptance.
“Everyone makes mistakes; it’s a human thing,” he says.
Following the incident, which occurred in the winter of 2025, Pretorius resisted the natural inclination to stay silent. He chose to speak up and raise awareness, writing two op-eds about his experience and participating in local media interviews. He reported the incident to the Iowa City Area Association of REALTORS® and local authorities.
He’s also kept his eye on the property in question, which he says has been listed an additional two dozen times. Pretorius assumes it’s the same fraudsters trying again and again.
“It just takes one person that’s too busy one day or has their guard down to get duped, and if they can get it over the finish line, then money’s gone forever,” he says.
Pretorius now gets an alert any time the property is listed, “and I immediately call the agent as a courtesy.”
Fraud Attempts Are Prevalent
While cases aren’t well-documented, seller impersonation fraud is common according to CertiFID and the American Land Title Association (ALTA).
More than half of real estate professionals reported having experienced at least one seller impersonation fraud attempt in the last six months in 2023.
Nearly three out of every 10pdf title insurance companies surveyed by ALTA experienced at least one seller impersonation fraud attempt in 2023. Roughly 16% paid out claims related to fraudulent transactions, and 85% said the attempt involved vacant land, making it by far the most common property type targeted.
That’s how it was for Brad Walsh, president of Eagle Title in Maryland.
A few years ago, his team was finalizing a transaction for a vacant lot in the southern part of the state, when the bank flagged an issue. The name on the bank account didn’t match the name of the supposed seller.
Walsh worked with the bank to recover most of the buyer’s money. Speed was on their side.
“If you can identify within 24 hours that the fraud is there and get to the bank that the money is sent to, you have a much higher chance of recovering those funds,” he says.
In hindsight, there were red flags that Walsh wishes he had known, including that the lot had been sold for half of its listing price after only being on the market for a week.
In the end, he helped broker a deal with the same buyer and the real owner of the lot calling it a “fun ending to an otherwise not fun story.”
“When something bad happens, [people] freeze and then don’t want to tell anyone anything,” Walsh says. “In my experience, bad news doesn’t get better by not telling anyone about the bad news. Sometimes, simply explaining what’s going on, explaining what you’re doing to remediate the situation, and ultimately, showing what your value is in that moment—that really is where you can change [someone’s] perception.”
Practice Extreme Due Diligence
Pretorius recommends that listing agents ask more personal or unexpected questions—like “Who’s your neighbor?” He says don’t rely solely on IDs, which can be forged, especially with the prevalence of public records.
He also uses Forewarn, a product that can help verify a prospect’s identity using a name or phone number, which is a benefit of his local REALTOR® association.
Both Pretorius and Walsh agree, slow down and keep your guard up—something that could be a bit sticky from a customer service perspective.
“In a lot of these vacant lot or second home transactions, we almost need to be treating the transaction as if it’s fraudulent until proven otherwise,” Walsh says. “... That’s the level of due diligence we need to be doing as title professionals.”
If you believe you’ve encountered someone fraudulently impersonating a seller, NAR recommends reporting the incident to your local law enforcement agency and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
