One of the more “sophisticated” scams – and particularly expensive if it succeeds – is where the scammers attempt to get an organisation to update the bank details that they hold on file for a legitimate supplier, and replace the legitimate suppliers bank account details with the scammers bank account details.
These scams are becoming increasingly prevalent, no doubt because of the financial payoff, when they’re successful.
Here is a recent example:
Make sure that your staff are alert to the fact that these scams exist. We have written a previous blog article which covers e-mail and other scams in detail (see link below), we encourage you to share this article with your team:
https://www.zen.net.au/how-to-protect-against-e-mail-and-other-scams/
Have strong Accounts Payable controls. Any request for a change to existing payment details or addition of a new bank account / supplier should be considered a potential red flag and require careful scrutiny and independent verification to ensure that the new bank details are legitimate.
Also consider informing your clients to always double-check any advice that they receive in relation to an updated bank account for your organisation – as this could be an indication of a scammer seeking to impersonate one of the staff within your business.