NYC woman says she lost over $740K after her lawyer’s email was hacked

[Kamaji]

NYC woman says she lost over $740K after her lawyer’s email was hacked

By Kathianne Boniello   
August 26, 2023

An Upper West Side woman lost the bulk of her savings after thieves hacked into her real estate lawyer’s email and duped her into wiring them more than $746,000, she claims in a lawsuit.

Leila Meltzer was living in a studio in Lincoln Towers when she got the chance in 2021 to buy a bigger, 739-square-foot one-bedroom apartment with a balcony in the same building on West End Avenue.

Meltzer, 77, agreed to pay $849,000 for the new apartment and lined up a buyer for her 575-square-foot studio, using a combination of a family inheritance and her life savings to pay for the new pad.

After shelling out the 10% down payment, the retired nurse got emails in October 2021 from her presumed attorney Debra M. Powell, instructing her to wire the remaining $746,100, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

Meltzer sent the money — only to find out two days later that the requests were fake, she claimed in the legal filing.

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Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/08/26/nyc-woman-lost-746k-after-lawyers-email-was-hacked-suit/

[Kamaji]

Let's hope the lawyer has enough malpractice coverage.

[sneakypete]

Let's hope the lawyer has enough malpractice coverage.

@Kamaji

Chances are it is someone pretending to  be a lawyer,so let's just hope she has enough assets for the po-po to seize to put that old woman back in a house/townhouse/whatever.

I also hope the (probably) fake lawyer goes to a very unpleasant prison for a long time.

[Kamaji]

@Kamaji

Chances are it is someone pretending to  be a lawyer,so let's just hope she has enough assets for the po-po to seize to put that old woman back in a house/townhouse/whatever.

I also hope the (probably) fake lawyer goes to a very unpleasant prison for a long time.

She's suing her lawyer - the actual lawyer - for negligence and malpractice:

“Powell did not see this email or learn anything about what was happening to her client because her email account was under the control of the hackers,” Meltzer said in the lawsuit against Powell, alleging the attorney was “oblivious to the threat of cybercrime” and “failed to take even the most rudimentary steps to protect Meltzer from cyberfraud.”

And rightly so, in this day and age, even solos have no excuses for not having secure electronic systems.

[mountaineer]

Yep. If your business is connected to the worldwide superhighway information web at all, you sure as heck better have security systems in place.

[Smokin Joe]

Best security is to have people show up and conduct the transactions in person.

If it isn't on line, it is much harder to steal.

[Gefn]

Best security is to have people show up and conduct the transactions in person.

If it isn't on line, it is much harder to steal.

I always paid the lawyer in person - or their paralegal. And got a receipt at the same time.

Always get a receipt whether or not you pay cash or credit .

[DefiantMassRINO]

Always be skeptical about requests for money from anyone all the time.

[Gefn]

Always be skeptical about requests for money from anyone all the time.

@DefiantMassRINO

Like the Peter Griffin avatar!