The final installment in our Year-End Planning Series covers how high-net-worth families can protect themselves against increasingly sophisticated fraud, from wire fraud and credit freezes to voice-cloning scams and reducing your public footprint.
This series has covered Donor-Advised Funds, Cash Balance plans, and a year-end insurance risk audit. This final installment turns to a different kind of risk: the growing sophistication of fraud targeting wealthy families.
The Threat Most Wealthy Families Underestimate
High-net-worth families are targets. Their names appear in public filings, property records, and press coverage. Their assets move in large, infrequent transfers. That makes them attractive to fraudsters.
The tactics have improved. Scammers now use AI-generated voices, spoofed emails, and stolen personal data to impersonate advisors, attorneys, and family members.
Year-end is a high-risk window. Transactions spike, people travel, and attention is divided. Here are the steps we recommend before January.
1. Verify Every Wire, Every Time
Wire fraud is common and increasingly convincing. A spoofed email from a title company or attorney can redirect a closing payment in minutes, and recovery is rare.
Adopt a simple rule. Never act on wire instructions received by email alone. Call back using a number you already have on file, never one in the message. Any change in instructions should trigger a second verification.
2. Freeze Your Credit
A credit freeze at all three bureaus costs nothing and helps prevent new-account fraud. Freeze credit for every family member, including minor children, whose identities are frequently stolen and go unnoticed for years.
You can lift a freeze temporarily when you need to apply for credit.
3. Harden Your Accounts
Use a password manager and unique passwords for every financial account. Turn on multi-factor authentication, and prefer an authenticator app or hardware key over text messages.
Ask your mobile carrier for a port-out PIN. SIM swap attacks let criminals intercept your text codes and take over accounts.
4. Agree on a Family Code Word
Voice-cloning scams are rising. A caller sounds exactly like a child or parent in distress and asks for money urgently.
Choose a family code word that never appears online or in email. Anyone requesting an urgent transfer must use it. It sounds simple. It works.
5. Reduce Your Public Footprint
Review what is visible about your family. Property records, LLC filings, social media posts, and travel photos all give fraudsters material.
Consider holding real estate in trusts or entities that do not carry your name.* Social media posts about your travels should ideally be posted after you return, not during.
6. Know Your Advisor's Safeguards
Ask how your advisory firm and custodian verify instructions. A good firm will confirm transfer requests by voice, flag unusual activity, and never pressure you to move money quickly.
If anyone, including someone claiming to be us, pushes urgency or secrecy, stop and verify.
The Bottom Line
You cannot eliminate fraud risk. You can make your family a much harder target. Most of these steps take an afternoon and cost nothing.
Before year-end, review this list with your spouse and adult children. Then call us to walk through how we protect your accounts on our end.
* We recommend reviewing this with your estate attorney before making changes to titling or ownership.
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice. Please consult your tax, legal, or security professional regarding your specific situation.