How Lawyers Title Agency of Monroe Recovered 99% of Funds After a Wire Fraud Incident

---

About

[Lawyers Title Agency of Monroe](https://www.lawyerstitlemonroe.com/meetourteam) is a nine-person title agency serving clients across Michigan, closing up to 100 files a month. Co-owners Ann Hammack and Kendan Myers, Vice President, moved the agency from RamQuest to Qualia in 2025, following Qualia’s acquisition of RamQuest. They adopted Qualia Shield, a comprehensive wire fraud prevention tool, to bring their previously separate tools onto one operating platform.

In their small office, staff know their files personally and pride themselves on providing timely service to their customers. That way of working was put to the test when a routine payoff wire ran into a problem nobody expected: Shield flagged the payoff as high-risk four times, but the team overrode the warning and sent the $82,000 wire anyway. Three weeks later, they discovered it was wire fraud. Within a week of turning to the Qualia Fraud Recovery Service, 99% of it was back in their hands.

Challenge

**The Team Sent a Wire That Was Flagged by Shield as High-Risk Four Times**

Payoff wires at Lawyers Title Agency of Monroe are designed to follow the same process every time: the seller sends the wire number to the real estate agent, who forwards it to the escrow team to verify it in Shield before sending it out. The agency runs dozens of wires the same way every month without incident, and for a while, this one looked like all the rest. The original payoff instructions came through and cleared Shield with a low-risk assessment.

When a delayed closing led to updated payoff instructions being sent through the same email chain, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Closing delays aren't uncommon in the industry, but what the Lawyers Title team didn't know was that a bad actor had already compromised the email chain.

The team ran the new payoff through Shield four times, and each time, it accurately came back high-risk. Shield caught what a person could easily miss: a single altered digit in the new payoff instructions. At the time, Lawyers Title had no formal requirement for a second review of flagged wires before being sent out. That decision was left to the escrow officer's individual judgment rather than a mandatory escalation policy.

The escrow officer handling the file assumed a glitch in the system and made the call to send it out.

**Three Weeks Passed Before They Discovered It Was Fraud** Lawyers Title didn’t discover anything out of the ordinary for three weeks. The client actually discovered the problem himself. After checking his mortgage app to see when his escrow refund would arrive, he noticed that the loan had never been paid off.

For Hammack and Myers, the moment they found out is still vivid. “Panic,” Myers recalled. “Just trying to figure it all out. What do we need to do? We’ve never really had to do anything like this before.” Hammack remembers the sleepless nights that followed and the fear that came with not yet knowing whether any of it could be undone.

Before they knew whether any of it could be recovered, Lawyers Title Agency of Monroe paid off the client's mortgage in full from its own operating account, so the client wouldn't carry any of the financial risk while the agency worked to get the money back.

They couldn’t resolve this complex situation they had never seen on their own. They needed expert support.

Solution

**Fast, Reliable Support When It Matters Most** Three weeks is a long time for a fraudulent wire to go unnoticed. “At this point we thought that it’s probably gone,” Hammack recalled. Luckily, it wasn’t. An escrow team member got the receiving bank on the phone and discovered the funds hadn’t yet moved.

Once they confirmed the funds hadn’t moved, Lawyers Title immediately reached out to the Qualia Fraud Recovery Service. With a team staffed by former U.S. Secret Service investigators who already have working relationships across banks and law enforcement agencies, Qualia connected directly with the agency's bank partner, Encore. For a nine-person agency with no fraud recovery experience of their own, that access made the difference between a case that stalls while someone figures out who to call and one that moves immediately.

After connecting with the Qualia Fraud Recovery Service and their bank partner, Encore Bank, the two worked the case together directly to help recover the funds. Hammack described what that first call with the Qualia Fraud Recovery Service team felt like:

Hammack says the two sides never left her guessing: “There were no gaps. Both sides communicated to us to make sure that we were always informed.” Communication ran mostly through email, but once the case was resolved, Lawyers Title Agency of Monroe also got a personal phone call checking in on how they were doing, a small gesture from the Qualia team that Hammack still remembers.

Looking back at those first few days, Myers says what stayed with him wasn't just the recovery process itself, but not having to face it alone:

**Turning a Verification Oversight Into a Zero-Tolerance Policy** While Lawyers Title Agency of Monroe had a positive recovery experience, that recovery was only necessary because a high-risk assessment in [Qualia Shield](/shield) had been overridden. The gap was procedural, and Lawyers Title updated their processes immediately after the incident.

Any wire that isn't assessed as low risk in Shield now requires direct sign-off from Hammack or Myers, plus an independent callback and manual verification, before it can be sent. Most flags turn out to be clerical rather than fraudulent, such as a stray comma in an LLC's name throwing off a match that gets cleared once someone looks closely. Based on their previous experience, both Hammack and Myers agree it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Results

A positive partial or full recovery of funds from a wire fraud incident typically takes weeks or months. One week after reporting the fraud incident with the Qualia Fraud Recovery Service, the agency got its own funds back: 99% of the $82,000 wire. Recovered through Qualia's direct coordination with bank partner Encore and law enforcement, it’s the kind of multi-party coordination most agencies can't access on their own.

Shield’s four-time flag was the catalyst for a mandatory second-review policy that is now standard on every wire the agency sends to ensure another wire fraud incident like this doesn’t occur.

For Myers, the recovery didn't feel finished until it actually hit the bank statement:

Hammack and Myers now share their story with the real estate agents, lenders, and agencies they work with, hoping to spread awareness of the warning signs to look out for and the important safeguards that can help others avoid the same mistake.

**Wire fraud requires immediate action. If you’re experiencing a wire fraud incident, the Qualia Fraud Recovery Service is available to help minimize financial loss, preserve client relationships, and safeguard your reputation.**

*To learn more about how Qualia Shield and the Fraud Recovery Service protect your closings and help recover funds in the case of wire fraud, contact us today.*

**[SPEAK WITH AN EXPERT](https://learn.qualia.com/shield)**