Scammer gave me his bank details - now what to do?

[AndyDubbya]

My firm's accounts lady received an email that looked like it was from me, asking her to transfer just under £15k (to avoid an automated warning being flagged I guess) to "a beneficiary", and she replied before she'd sussed what it was. She then alerted me.

Having made contact, they now think we're on the hook, so I've replied a couple of further times and now have their account details (Lloyds in Clapham) including a business name. What can I do with it? Will the police be interested?

[Steven_RW]

Lloyds will be. Give the branch a call and inform them. They will have fraud teams that look into such stuff.

[AndyDubbya]

Thanks - phoned them and forwarded the email. The girl on the phone said they get thousands of emails like it every day!

[Greshamst]

Yep let Lloyds know ASAP. This will be a mule account they use to receive funds and then whip them away somewhere else.

If Lloyds know it's being used to receive illegal funds, they can put a block on it, meaning that other people who may not be as smart as you might have a chance of getting their money back.

Usually the fraudsters transfer money out quickly, and Lloyds are useless at recovering it, very rarely do they manage to. And the poor/stupid person who's been duped won't be refunded as they transferred and authorised the payment.

[londonbabe]

Perhaps you have enough information to make a large donation to charity before the account is blocked?
No. That would probably be a Bad Thing.

[AndyDubbya]

Nice idea but apart from probably being a bit illegal, I'd feel a bit bad if a charity had to pay bank charges because the payment got refused.

[insurance_jon]

it sounds like your emails have been intercepted.

get your IT guys to look at ASAP

email interception is now a much more common thing

[AndyDubbya]

Cheers - I have, and they've confirmed all's well, no interception going on. The scammer's just found the accounts email address & mine by looking at my company website, and sent an email looking like it comes from me, but where replies go to a @mail.com address.

[anonymous-user]

That's a very concerning fraud attempt.

Thanks for posting the details.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a process or a system which prevents this situation from actually been carried through.

[Podie]

Pretty typical whaling email - this sort of thing is growing exponentially at the moment.

[Turn7]

Podie said:

Pretty typical whaling email - this sort of thing is growing exponentially at the moment.

Whaling ?

[Podie]

Turn7 said:

Podie said:

Pretty typical whaling email - this sort of thing is growing exponentially at the moment.

Whaling ?

Targeted emails, using social engineering techniques. Have a Google. Also look up spear phishing.

[Turn7]

Podie said:

Turn7 said:

Podie said:

Pretty typical whaling email - this sort of thing is growing exponentially at the moment.

Whaling ?

Targeted emails, using social engineering techniques. Have a Google. Also look up spear phishing.

[Podie]

Turn7 said:

Podie said:

Turn7 said:

Podie said:

Pretty typical whaling email - this sort of thing is growing exponentially at the moment.

Whaling ?

Targeted emails, using social engineering techniques. Have a Google. Also look up spear phishing.

It's something we're dealing with at the moment. End user education is a good starting point...