On August 31, 2018, Fidelity National Title's Vancouver, Washington operation opened an order for the refinance of a loan secured by an apartment complex in the amount of $9 million. The loan was scheduled to close on October 31, 2018. The title report reflected two loans to be paid at closing. Both loans were held by the same commercial lender.

The escrow officer on the transaction emailed payoff requests for both loans and received two payoff statements on October 10, 2018, reflecting payoff amounts of $4,111,978.79 and $836,471.77. The email containing the payoff statements originated from a servicing associate employed by the payoff lender. The new loan documents were drawn and the escrow officer requested updated payoff statements on October 18, 2018.

Donna Finnegan, an escrow associate extraordinaire with Fidelity, had placed a reminder on her calendar to follow–up with the payoff lender for the updated statements. Then out of the blue on October 24, 2018, Donna received two back–to–back emails with two payoff statements pertaining to this refinance. The emails appeared to come from the loan officer on the new commercial loan, instead of the payoff lender.

Donna carefully reviewed the payoff statements and compared them to the statements received on October 10, 2018. The amounts were exactly the same, nothing had been updated. She thought that was strange as the loans would have accrued more interest.

Next, Donna checked the date issued on the new statements and found that they were also dated October 10, 2018. The new statements she received were not updated statements at all. Then she noticed the bank wire information on the statements she just received had been changed from one national banking institution to another.

Donna notified the escrow officer immediately and the escrow officer called the payoff lender to confirm that its bank wire information had not changed. The representative of the payoff lender confirmed the statements purportedly received from the new lender had been altered in a failed attempt to divert millions of dollars in loan payoff funds. The escrow officer received updated figures and a verbal verification of the bank wire information and the refinance transaction closed without a loss.

Whew! Donna's keen sense of wrong doing and heightened awareness prevented a potential loss of $4,948,450.56 and as a result the Company has rewarded her $1,500.