Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Attorney General’s Consumer Assistance Program (CAP) is warning of several scams currently targeted at Vermont businesses. If your firm has experienced any of these scams, please report them to the Consumer Assistance Program online atwww.uvm.edu/consumeror by calling 800-649-2424.
SPOOFED EMAILS FROM CEO:CAP has received multiple reports from businesses and non-profit organizations of their financial officers receiving scam e-mails from the owner, CEO, or executive director asking that a bank or wire transfer be processed. These e-mails appear to be sent from legitimate company e-mail addresses and include specific details regarding where the funds are to be sent. Once funds are sent, they are often claimed quickly, which makes the likelihood of having money refunded through the bank or wire transfer company quite low.
Businesses and non-profits should make sure to have routine financial processes and checkpoints in place that would prevent funds being transferred as the result of an e-mail without a second staff authorization or without an in-person confirmation.
INTERNET DOMAIN REGISTRATION:Some Vermonters have reported receiving an email from China or another foreign country offering to register their company’s domain name in Asian top-level domains in order to protect it from another company registering the same or a similar sounding name. This is a kind of scam called “slamming” and is trying to sell you an unnecessary service. This scammer will ask for your credit card number or bank routing number for the payment of an annual fee as well as personal information such as a mailing address, mobile and work phone numbers for their records.
GIFT CARDS:Convenience stores have reported a gift card scam. A store employee receives a phone calls from a person identifying himself as a technician assigned to test the store’s gift cards. The employee is then directed to activate the card and report it as being paid for in cash. He is then asked to give the card number and the corresponding pin number to the technician, to cut the card in half and staple it to the cash receipts for processing the following day. The store loses the value of the gift cards and the scammer gets the value of the card without purchasing it.
One strategy to address this scam is to train staff to direct any calls of this nature to managers, even if they are received outside of regular business hours.
Vermont AG: Feb 10, 2016