We have been talking about fraud the past couple of days. Here’s another one. Watch out for wiring money to the bad guys too.
The bad guys get you to click on something that launches a program where they can read your emails. This really happened – the business owner was buying a house. The bad guys see that and see who his attorney is. They intercept an email from the attorney, and compose a new email that looks like it is from his attorney. “Wire the money to this account.”
$400,000 gonezo.
Be careful! Confirm the wire instructions by phone.
I have had several business clients over the years fall prey to wire fraud. When researching insurance products for these exposures we found the cost to be high and the procedural requirements, for coverage to apply, to be common senses. So, in most cases our clients have adopted the required procedures and self insure some or all of their wire fraud loss exposure.
Not embarrassed, it’s the reality of the world we live in. We were hacked in the middle of email corrospondence with a vendor. The hacker was trying to redirect a wire txfr of about 15k. Fortunately for us, it didn’t make sense what they were asking. We contacted the vendor, and they said it wasn’t them. The hacker had mimicked the vendor logo, it was almost legit. Pretty scary stuff that these guys were monitoring our email account for this type of activity. Great subject to be talking about, we all need to be aware.
Scammers attempted this to me. They started composing emails to me from my vendor in the same tone. When they asked for a routine payment and said they changed their bank, that was a red flag. I contacted the vendor in another way by text (which the scammer also duplicated their account there too) I eventually figured out it was a scam. Tips: 1) check the full email address, 2) if someone changes their bank account number, watch out!
Phishing, Smishing, Vishing… even informed-spam email campaigns, they all stem from the gathering and brokering of your personal information. This data is often gathered and sold by legitimate services you’ve signed up for, but used against you in nefarious ways. While I won’t suggest any specific company to scrub your data from these lists, I will recommend to anyone that has identity protection coverage through their employer, bank or otherwise, to look into whether or not your coverage provides this service at no cost. If not, at roughly $15 a month typically, I think one or two months would be a worthy investment for anyone – or a gift for anyone you know who’d fall for extended-warranty scams
Brazen from behind a screen. I doubt they would attempt it standing in front of me.