Do you have a spare $185k USD? A Scam We Averted

We feel compelled to share how we aborted a scam that could have cost us $185k USD.

How the scammers attempted it was simple. They sent an email from the MD to the Commercial Manager. The display on the email doesn’t show the actual email even though it was a gmail account.

Are you here? Wanted to call you but i’m on conference. Do you have any idea if a payment came in from Cavanist Inc? let me know.

Regards,

Patrick Bourke
Managing Director

Notice that they asked if money has been received from a made up company (we could not find it when we Google it). They were hoping to engage the recipient. Mary replied:

Hi Pat,

Just checked all bank accounts for the last 7 days and cannot find any receipts from Cavanist. How much are you expecting as I will search by value in case they have a different name on the description.

Cheers
Mary

Got a bite! Now let’s see how much cash the business has available:

Patrick Bourke <[email protected]> wrote:

Ok, i will check with them to know the exact time the payment is going to come in. So what is the cash available balance as of today when you checked the account?

Mary wrote back:

Including NZ $XXXXXX

Patrick Bourke <[email protected]> wrote:
Ok, do you have the access to initiate/send wire?

Things were looking promising for the scammer. He knew how much cash was available and now was just checking if Mary could send the transfer. Mary wrote:

Is it for an international transfer, if so we have to complete paperwork but me and Paul are here to complete if needed. Just need recipient details.

It doesn’t get any better for the scammer. Money was available, and he was communicating with the people that could approve the transfer. Now for the final stroke:

Patrick Bourke <[email protected]> wrote:
Ok, below is the instruction and the amount to send is $185k USD

Bank Name: CTBC Bank Co. Ltd (Nashihjiao Branch)
Bank Address: 1F No 64 JhongJheng rd, Yonghe Dist., Taipei, Taiwan
Account #: 819-13103-9571
Swift Code: CTCBTWTP
Company Name: Wang Chen Chang
Company Address: 152 Sec 2, Chung Yung Rd. Taipei, Taiwan
Let me know if you get this.

Mary was now suspicious. Mary wrote:

Can I please ask what this is for?
Cheers
Mary

Patrick Bourke <[email protected]> wrote:
This is an investment payment.

Unfortunately for the scammer, we still did a further check, which was to call Pat to verify his instructions.

The scam was discovered.

What have we learnt?

The scammers are running a systematic approach to their endeavours:

  1. Pretend that a senior executive is checking if money has been received.
  2. Ask how much cash is available.
  3. Ask if the recipient is authorised to make a money transfer.
  4. Provide instructions of the payment details. Generally overseas.

You can protect yourself by:

  1. Asking questions about the purpose of the transfer.
  2. Checking that the email address of the executive is accurate (in this case we don’t know who [email protected] is).
  3. Contact the person requesting the transfer by phone based on the telephone directory of the company.

Unfortunately we suspect that a few companies have succumbed to this unsolicited request to transfer funds from a pseudo executive.

Whilst the Government cannot really do anything with overseas operators, it is still important to report it.