Description

No funds were sent in response to this scam; however, our organization is sharing these details so that others will be aware. The sender of a fictitious invoice to our organization had accurate email addresses for our President and C.E.O. and our accounting email box and had fabricated email exchanges between our organization and the organization seeking payment. A search on the BBB website of the two email addresses used by the fictitious billing organization indicated that one of the email addresses was associated with numerous complaints/reports for fake invoices under a different business name. While the email address was not specific to an employee of the scammer, the emails to our organization were "signed" by an individual claiming to be the Controller of the consulting firm. Our organization received an email to our accounting email box on 8/15/25 with an invoice dated 4/01/225 in the amount of $49,804 for services from Bruton Consulting LLC that were described as: "Specialized R&D activities include in-depth analytics, strategic planning, and implementation of R&D initiatives tailored to enhance innovation and growth within the organization including Marketing, Business Research & Development Services for months. Executive Business Coaching and Development + VIP membership set-up and onboarding Customized Solutions, Project Management, Assessment and Measurement, Principle-Centered Organizational Change, Method Optimization" Instructions on the invoice indicated to remit payment by ACH only to GO2bank in the account name of Bruton Consulting with an account number and routing number. A W-9 form accompanied the invoice,