Since a notable portion of my clients are AR members I thought I'd post this here. One of my clients rec'd what appeared to be an e-mail form Sadie who handles the MEA accounting asking him to wire funds for his deposit to x,y,z account which is not not our MEA account. He wired the money although he had already made that payment via personal check. Should have called us! He's out over $5,000.

The point is if any of you who are my clients get any type of message that you have any question about call us to clarify. Please!

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Since a notable portion of my clients are AR members I thought I'd post this here. One of my clients rec'd what appeared to be an e-mail form Sadie who handles the MEA accounting asking him to wire funds for his deposit to x,y,z account which is not not our MEA account. He wired the money although he had already made that payment via personal check. Should have called us! He's out over $5,000.

The point is if any of you who are my clients get any type of message that you have any question about call us to clarify. Please!

Mark

Cant the financial institution not undo the transaction.

What bank did it go to? Us based?

I send a lot of wires for investments (wells fargo loves it’s $30 fee) but sending international wires will require multiple clearances internally from Wells Fargo. I personally hate sending international wires.

Mike

One always needs to check wiring instructions. I have a client who lost $445,000 by sending the wire to a scam artist.

Check the instructions for every wire.

when they ask to wire money it probably s a scam

That scam is nowadays especially prevalent in the real estate industry. Buyers get an email from their 'attorney' to wire deposits to a fake account and they are out a big sum.
They are either hacking email accounts or somehow intercepting communications so they know the right time to pounce.

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
One always needs to check wiring instructions. I have a client who lost $445,000 by sending the wire to a scam artist.

Check the instructions for every wire.

How??

We do international transfers almost on a daily basis.

Never had any problems.

But, we always makes sure we know who we are transferring money too.

Email instructions are only accepted after talking to the recipient!

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
One always needs to check wiring instructions. I have a client who lost $445,000 by sending the wire to a scam artist.

Check the instructions for every wire.

I am sick to my stomach. Wow!!

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Emailinstructions are only accepted after talking to the recipient!

Yep, I know a couple of really smart guys that failed to do this...and one was a banker!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
One always needs to check wiring instructions. I have a client who lost $445,000 by sending the wire to a scam artist.

Check the instructions for every wire.

How??

We do international transfers almost on a daily basis.

Never had any problems.

But, we always makes sure we know who we are transferring money too.

Email instructions are only accepted after talking to the recipient!

That my friend is why you do not have a problem.

The client in question got wiring instructions that they followed exactly. The problem was that the instructions were not to the actual entity who was owed the money. It was a fraudulent set of instructions.

quote:

Originally posted by vvreddy:
That scam is nowadays especially prevalent in the real estate industry. Buyers get an email from their 'attorney' to wire deposits to a fake account and they are out a big sum.
They are either hacking email accounts or somehow intercepting communications so they know the right time to pounce.

Bingo

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
when they ask to wire money it probably s a scam

I would have to disagree. Many transactions require wires these days to speed the transfer of funds. Real estate transactions almost always require a wire for example.

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
One always needs to check wiring instructions. I have a client who lost $445,000 by sending the wire to a scam artist.

Check the instructions for every wire.

How??

We do international transfers almost on a daily basis.

Never had any problems.

But, we always makes sure we know who we are transferring money too.

Email instructions are only accepted after talking to the recipient!

That my fried is why you do not have a problem.

The client in question got wiring instructions that they followed exactly. The problem was that the instructions were not to the actual entity who was owed the money. It was a fraudulent set of instructions.

one should call the fbi asap

https://www.bankinfosecurity.c...ire-transfers-p-2740


in the us it is tough to open false bank accounts and large wire transactions are often flagged by both banks.

sending international wires is a whole other bag tricks. i hate wires for trophy shipping ect - small amount to strange overseas banks

i personally hate all electronic transfers - paypal included. if i want to use a payment system - i prefer a credit cars. i don’t even use an atm card.

Mike

FBI has been contacted.

I’m a banker and want to stress to all on here what a significant problem this has become. It’s a huge problem everywhere. Most banks have instituted stronger Affirmative Confirmation policies to combat this fraud. In our case, unless there is written directive with other instructions, we contact the CEO or President of a company to verify a wire, using a phone number on file that we’ve verified for legitimacy. Many other banks use the same procedure these days.

Here is how these scams are commonly run... The bad guys install spyware on your computer via you visiting an infected webpage (porn sites are a big source of getting infected. Gives a whole new meaning to getting an STD) or clicking on a link in a phishing email or text. Then, you’ve inadvertently installed spyware on your computer NETWORK, not just your computer. The bad guys are patient, often watching your company internal communications for months. They figure out who the CEO and CFO are. They watch for a big transaction that’s about to take place where the CFO is expecting to wire a large sum. Then they strike by creating a fake email that is purportedly from the CEO, directing funds to be wired and giving wiring instructions. CFO expects this, so wires the funds. Often, if the bank doesn’t confirm by calling, the funds get wired to bad guys fake account and funds are promptly RE-wired to other accounts overseas and out of reach of law enforcement. By the time you realize something is phishy, your funds have disappeared. Most of the bad guys running these scams are from Eastern Europe, Africa or Asia - out of reach from US law enforcement.

This exact thing happened to a large, publicly traded company (I don’t recall the company other than they were in employee benefits administration) to the tune of $38,000,000+. The actual amount stolen was about $45,000,000; and about $4,000,000-5,000,000 was recovered but $38,000,000 was never recovered.

I had it happen to one of my clients for $28,000; which was bad enough. The owner had been visiting a porn site on his office computer, got infected with spyware and when he went to Maui on vacation, the bad guys sent CFO an email purportedly from the hotel boss was staying at, and CFO had us wire funds. Everything was done according to policy and procedure and $28,000 was wired to the bad guys. Not enough for the FBI or Interpol to have any interest in; which is why most of these fraudsters steal relatively small amounts as they know it’s unlikely law enforcement will come calling. This was several years ago, and we instituted the CEO callback procedure after that. Before, we simply confirmed the wire by calling the sender. But when the sender is being scammed, that’s not enough, so now we only confirm through CEO or their appointed designee.

Watch the websites you visit. Never click on any link you unexpectedly receive. Verify links with the sender by other means than emailing back to them. Above all, hover over email addresses and links and if they do not match what they are supposed to be - DO NOT CLICK!

Do these things and you’ll likely not fall victim to such scams.

DLS...


Great advice...

My wife and I are receiving probably about 5 to 10 e mails a week. Posing as our internet provider asking us to up date our profile by clicking the link attached.

I forward these email on to the various companies to their fraud or abuse department.

Time for individual to set up two step verification process. Boy do I like that, instant text message as soon as your credit card is run, many times the text beats the cashier handing me my receipt.

I love the two step process!