Before a large payment

Most scams take a few thousand dollars. The ones that take everything are different: they don't ask you for money at all. They wait until you are already sending money, and quietly change where it goes.

A house closing. A contractor's final invoice. A transfer to a new account your adviser set up. A deposit on a car. You were going to send it anyway. All they have to do is change the account number.

That's why this page exists. It is one habit, and it takes five minutes.

The habit

Before any payment you could not afford to lose, confirm the account details out loud, on a phone number you looked up yourself.

Not the number in the email. Not the number in the signature block. The number from the contract you signed, the company's own website that you typed in, or the card in your wallet.

Then read the details back, digit by digit:

"I'm sending it to account 1234, routing 5678, in the name of X. Is that right?"

Say it out loud even if the email looks perfect. Especially then.

Why "the email looks right" is not enough

Payment instructions that arrive by email or text are the single most attacked thing in ordinary life. Three things go wrong, and none of them looks wrong:

• The address is one letter off. @titleco.com and @titlec0.com read the same at a glance.
• The thread is real. Somebody who has been reading the mailbox replies inside the conversation you have been having for weeks, in the same voice, with your file number in it. It really is from them, which is exactly what makes it work.
• The change is small and reasonable. "Our bank switched, use these new details." Businesses do change banks. That's why the sentence works.

A phone call to a number you chose ends all three. It costs five minutes and it does not depend on you spotting anything.

The days it matters most

• A home purchase or refinance. Closing wires are the classic target. Call the title company or attorney on the number from the contract, not the one on the wire instructions, and do it the day you send.
• A contractor's final payment, especially after storm damage.
• Anything an adviser calls "moving your money to a safer account." Read the phantom hacker pattern first. No bank or government office asks you to move money to keep it safe.
• A first payment to anyone new, where you have nothing to compare against.

Two things to ask your own bank, in advance

Ask these on a quiet afternoon, not on the day:

1. "If I send a wire by mistake, what can you actually do?" Wires are the hardest payment to bring back, and the answer depends on how fast you call. Knowing the answer before you need it changes what you do in the first hour.
2. "Can you put a note on my account that I verify large transfers by phone?" Many banks will, and it gives the staff a reason to pause.

If you are sending it right now and something feels off

Stop. A payment delayed by a day has never cost anybody their house. Call the other side on a number you look up, and if you cannot reach them, wait.

The people on the other end of a real closing are used to this call. The people on the other end of a fake one are not, and the pressure they apply when you say you will call back is the answer.

If the money has already gone, start here. The first hour is the one that matters, and nobody here will blame you.