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Evansville, IN – If your boss sends you an email, it’s very likely that you won’t ignore it. And scammers are aware of that. Tri-State Better Business Bureau and the Evansville Police are warning area residents of a rise in business email compromise (BEC) schemes. In this scam, fraudsters posing as company executives (CEOs, business owners, branch managers) are targeting payroll and invoice representatives asking them to send over employee information, to pay alleged outstanding bills or to transfer (“wire”) money to them. The emails look official at a first glance, with scammers going as far as copying official logos, colors, and even the real names of the executives they are impersonating. Other times, the scammer claims to be a third-party vendor requesting payment for bogus products and services.
“This is a very lucrative type of scam, with scammers being able to get thousands of dollars from a single victim,” says Oana Schneider, Director of Media Services for the Tri-state Better Business Bureau. This BBB report finds that the average BEC loss involving wire transfers is $35,000, while the average loss involving gift cards is $1,000 to $2,000.
Detective Nathan VanCleave with the EPD Financial Crimes Unit reports, “There has been a sharp uptick in the number of Business Email Compromise reports coming into the police department in the past several months. Multiple businesses, big and small, have fallen victim to this sophisticated scheme with losses in a single transaction ranging from $2,000 to almost $300,000.”
The Better Business Bureau and the Evansville Police recommend:
- Businesses and other organizations to take technical precautions such as multifactor authentication for email logins and other changes in email settings, along with verifying changes in information about customers, employees, or vendors.
- Local businesses and companies to develop and implement culture and training changes in organizations – namely, confirming requests by phone before acting and training all employees in internet security.
What to do if your organization has lost money to a BEC fraud:
- If an organization finds that it has been a victim of a BEC fraud, it needs to immediately call its bank to stop the payment and report it to the FBI. If a report is filed within 72 hours, there is a slight chance the money can be recovered.
- Complain to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. IC3 also asks people to report unsuccessful BEC attempts as well. Information from attempts may help establish patterns or identify mule bank accounts.
- Report fraud to BBB Scam Tracker.