by kmc307
The company I work for was the target of a scam that was well-planned. I would not be surprised if this works on some folks – please be careful people!
I received an email yesterday purporting to be from one of our employees. The email was “him” asking if it would be possible for me to update his direct deposit information. If so, he’d send me his bank account information.
Things that made this scam potentially quite effective:
- They researched our company and selected a real employee and used his first and last name.
- They created a gmail address that could plausibly be his.
- They researched our company and correctly guessed that I am the person that runs payroll, and figured my email address.
- They weren’t overly aggressive in their request (e.g. sending bank information straight away).
Things that alerted me almost immediately to it being a scam:
- We use an HR service where employees can self-manage direct deposit along with everything else.
- We almost never send email internally and communicate via slack or in person conversation.
Fortunately as a company of ten people it was a pretty quick “Hey, this email I just got is bullshit right?” and he said “Haha, oh yeah that’s bullshit”, however if we were larger and communicated more via email then it could certainly work on some companies.
Please be careful!