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a North County couples American dream quickly turned into a nightmare after wiring nearly $800,000 to who they thought was their escrow agent instead all of that money went to a scammer and I remember I just dropped to the floor I knew you know he went to the FBI 10 News reporter John Horne is joining us now live in the newsroom and John that money appears to be gone at as far as that couple can tell it's in somebody's account in Singapore now Kevin and Nicole North thought by now they'd be the proud owners of a brand new expansive Carlsbad home but today they're living with family and Solana Beach wondering how many clues how so many clues could slip through the cracks and let this scammer get away with it [Music] these days one year old Declan is the only one who can keep his parents positive otherwise Kevin and Nicole noir are tormented we can't sleep I mean last night you had night I mean nightmare the couple is living a nightmare they're staying with family in Solana Beach at a time they thought they'd be living the American dream all of this was for him you know the house with the yard and the schools and you know so he could have a sibling but instead they're 775 thousand dollar downpayment 60 percent of the purchase price of a Carlsbad home wired to a hacker posing as their escrow agent and we get a phone call where did you send your wire I said to you guys what do you mean to you guys stunned the NORs went to the FBI and are now retracing their steps they take direct aim at an employee at their escrow company who sent official wire instructions - the account number in an unsecured email they say a hacker got access to that email and duplicated that document adding account numbers to a Bitcoin exchange company nicole says the bank never caught it and escrow didn't alert her when she called to say she sent the money even though they never told her where to send it in that critical time nicole says the transfer could have been stopped they called back they called back too tell me what time the notary would be here the next day to sign our loan Docs the couple now reeling seeking their legal options looking back on how something like this could happen and the couple has set up a GoFundMe they asked us not to name the escrow company as they weigh their legal options now the FBI says Californians are the biggest target of this scam one way to protect yourself from this is not to accept wire instructions over email instead call that escrow agent that you know that you've been working with and get that over the phone for now live in the newsroom John Horhn 10 News unbelievable John thank you all right this is not the first time 10 News has reported on hackers and scammers targeting people in escrow last July we told you about a Carlsbad family who narrowly avoided giving their down payment to the wrong person they were spared when their bank noticed that the routing numbers didn't match up real estate fraud is becoming an epidemic - the FBI says Americans have lost more than 12 billion dollars to these scams since 2013 so here's what you can do to protect yourself first if you're in the process of buying a home double and triple check everything don't respond to email requests for money instead follow up with your Realtor or your escrow agents on the phone and confirm they sent the message