Generative AI Allegedly Used to Facilitate $255,000 Real Estate Fraud Scheme

In August 2023, Raegan Bartlo received what appeared to be a legitimate email from her title company lawyer requesting a $255,000 wire transfer for her home purchase in West Virginia. She sent the money but discovered two days later that it was a scam. Bartlo, who had cybersecurity experience, believed the email was written by AI software due to its conversational yet professional tone and lack of grammatical errors typical of human-written phishing emails. Cybersecurity experts report that scammers are increasingly using generative AI programs like ChatGPT to impersonate real estate agents, lenders, and title companies with sophisticated emails and voice clones. The FBI has seen an increase in housing fraud cases involving AI, though they lack specific data since AI use is not illegal and difficult to prove. In 2023, the FBI received 21,489 complaints of business email compromise totaling over $2.9 billion. Bartlo and her husband eventually recovered about half their money but still lost over $112,000, forcing them to use retirement savings with tax penalties. Three days before their final closing, Bartlo received another nearly identical scam email but did not fall for it the second time.