{"id":27214,"date":"2026-09-30T22:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brixwork.com\/realtors\/?p=27214"},"modified":"2026-10-01T19:04:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T19:04:35","slug":"ai-scam-phishing-emails-bot-scraping-real-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brixwork.com\/realtors\/ai-scam-phishing-emails-bot-scraping-real-estate\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Powered Scams Targeting Real Estate Websites: Fake Emails and Bot Scrapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI-Powered Attacks – Fake Emails and Bot Scrapers Targeting Real Estate Websites, and How To Combat It<\/h1>\n

We became aware of two fast-growing, AI-powered threats currently targeting the real estate industry. Here’s what our clients (And Others) should be wary of.<\/h4>\n<\/div>

AI has brought real, measurable benefits to real estate marketing. Brixwork has been using AI-powered web development workflows to significantly cut down production costs<\/a>, and more home buyers than ever are turning to Claude, Gemini, Perplexity to look for a Realtor\u00ae, creating new lead gen channels for eager agents.<\/p>\n

And, as usual, there are always the bad people who abuse and steal. We’ve been notified of scammers impersonating our team members, and stealing intellectual property \u2014 trying to find shortcuts around achievements that took us several years to build. Here are two major mis-uses of AI that our clients ought to be aware of (if you care about online safety and protecting what’s yours, that is).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Two Malicious Uses of AI That Brixwork Realtors\u00ae Should Be Aware Of<\/h2>\n

From impersonation emails to aggressive data harvesting, here is what Brixwork has identified and what is being done to fight back.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Fake \u201cJeff Kee\u201d Emails<\/h3>\n

AI-generated emails impersonating Brixwork\u2019s founder to dupe you.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Bot Scraping Surge<\/h3>\n

High-volume AI bot traffic data-mining our real estate websites for SEO steal.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Brixwork Is Fighting Back<\/h3>\n

SPF records for authentication, and evolving firewall rules to protect our clients.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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A Sophisticated Con – Using AI to Impersonate Jeff Kee By Email<\/h2>\n<\/div>

Fake emails have been around forever, but this one is different. We’ve identified a wave of spam emails impersonating founder and director Jeff Kee, sent from jeff.brixwork@gmail.com<\/strong> instead of our own ___@brixwork.com addresses. Not only that, these emails contain jargon and phrases we often discuss with our clients. Generic SEO scams that open with “Our audit of your website found problems” is easy to spot from 5km away. These ones sounded more believable, complete with an email signature with Jeff’s mugshot on it.<\/p>\n<\/div>

How Is AI Making These Scam Emails So Convincing to Our Realtors\u00ae?<\/h4>\n

Using AI, the people behind these emails appear to have studied and emulated<\/strong> Jeff\u2019s actual written communication style. Brixwork suspects the process works like this:<\/p>\n

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  1. Gather the source material.<\/strong> Jeff\u2019s writing is not hard to find: our own blog posts<\/a>, his personal posts on jeffkee.com<\/a>, his LinkedIn posts on web development and SEO<\/a>, and even previous Mailchimp email campaigns \u2014 many of which are publicly accessible for your convenience \u2014 all provide easy reference material for AI tools to mimic.<\/li>\n
  2. Feed it to AI writing tools.<\/strong> AI writing tools can study that material in bulk and learn the tone, phrasing, and structure. It also referenced our industry jargon, commonly discussed topics (such as how MLS\u00ae Reciprocity is critical for SEO on Realtor\u00ae websites<\/a>).<\/li>\n
  3. Generate the email templates.<\/strong> The resulting emails does a pretty decent job imitating Jeff’s tone, complete with his name and photo in the signature, branded with the Brixwork logo \u2014 familiarity designed specifically to make a longtime client lower their guard, a classic con-artist’s ploy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>
    How Are They Targeting Existing Clients \u2014 Did Brixwork Leak Their Contact List?<\/h5>\n

    This is not a random, mass-blasted scam. Brixwork has found that these emails are being sent to existing Brixwork clients<\/strong>. No, we did not have a security breach where we leaked email addresses of our clients. This points to a more deliberate, AI-assisted targeting process:<\/p>\n

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    1. The Real Estate Websites get scraped.<\/strong> The scammers appear to be using AI to scrape the very real estate websites Brixwork has built. Our websites are designed to be easy to find on Google\u2122, obviously.<\/li>\n
    2. The contact info gets harvested.<\/strong> Agent contact information is lifted directly from those pages \u2014 our job is to make it easy for your potential clients to find our Realtors\u00ae we serve.<\/li>\n
    3. The target list gets built.<\/strong> That public contact list then becomes the target list \u2014 which is why these emails land with existing Brixwork clients instead of random inboxes.<\/li>\n
    4. The emails are tailored to each client<\/strong> AI is best at rearranging words (that’s what LLMs are, fundamentally), so generating personalized emails to each one with a convincing subject and email body is easy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      From there, the scammers appeared to have created a new Gmail account at jeff.brixwork@gmail.com, and sent out dozens of emails, each tailored to the intended target, over the course of a few days. Many spotted the fake right away, and have alerted us of it going around.<\/p>\n<\/div>

      The Obvious Tells of a Scam Email, And How We Protect You Against Identity Theft<\/h5>\n

      Despite the efforts to impersonate a real Brixwork staffer, this scam had many tells of a scam email. A few quick checks expose almost every fake:<\/p>\n

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      1. The easiest tell that exposes this fake:<\/strong> We will never<\/strong> send emails from anywhere other than our own domain, ___<\/strong>@brixwork.com<\/u>. If it\u2019s not from a ___<\/strong>@brixwork.com<\/u> email address, it’s not us.<\/li>\n
      2. A familiar name and photo prove nothing.<\/strong> The scammers use Jeff\u2019s real name and photo on purpose \u2014 the familiar face is the bait, not proof of legitimacy. Clients who paid attention noticed the signature design was different from the norm.<\/li>\n
      3. Immediately Listing Prices Is A Red Flag.<\/strong> These fake emails exist to solicit money. We normally can’t give a price right away without a consultation since every job is unique, and our custom quotes need a consult and a review. We also won’t send a payment request without an official invoice.<\/li>\n
      4. Watch for sketchy \u201cSEO contractors\u201d on personal email accounts.<\/strong> Be wary of contractors who rotate through personal Gmail addresses \u2014 Brixwork has been a reputable, established agency for almost two decades, and there is no scenario where it would suddenly start sending from a free Gmail or Hotmail account.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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        What Is Brixwork Doing to Protect Against Impersonation Phishing Emails?<\/h4>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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        A post shared by Jeff Kee (@jeffkee)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n