Debiting of Accounts through Faking Information about the Bank Accounts of Business Partners of the Victims

Description:
Your business involves importing goods from your long-term business partner located abroad. Your correspondence with that partner is mainly by e-mail. At some point your business partner informs you that due to an audit going on in his/her company, their bank account is changed. Another reason possibly provided to explain the sudden change of bank account might be a distraint on the old account, which has been used so far by your business partner for payments with counteragents. In this regard you are asked to make the payment for the goods delivered to a new current account.

The fraud scheme:
Cases of fraud through faking business information have become more frequent during the last years. Using various methods, organized criminal groups get access to the electronic correspondence between businesses and their counteragents. Their goal is to obtain information about pending payments. Once they learn from your regular correspondence that there will be a payment soon, they create an e-mail account very similar to the one of your business partner. Usually the difference between the fake e-mail and the original e-mail used by your business partner is only one or a few symbols (a letter, a number, a sign). The fraud-doers count on your getting deceived by the visual resemblance between the two e-mail addresses. The message received from the fake e-mail account reads that for one reason or another (for example: distraint on the old bank account, audit on the company, etc.) the payment has to be made to a new bank account of your business partner, which is also given in the same e-mail.

Example:
Your business partner’s e-mail is: e-mail@domain.xxx and the message which informs you of the change of bank account is sent from an e-mail address: e-mail1@domain.xxx or e-mail@domainy.xxx.

Consequences:
The payment you make is received by a participant in the fraud scheme. You suffer a loss as the payment made is not sent to the true bank account of your business partner and you continue to be liable for the price of the delivered goods. This in turn may cause you additional damages, deterioration of your business relations with your counteragent and possible negative effects to your business reputation.

How to protect ourselves:
If you receive an e-mail informing you of changes in the bank details of your business partner, be sure to compare whether the e-mail address of the sender of that message matches exactly the one usually used in your correspondence with that partner. In addition, we recommend calling or faxing your counteragent for confirmation of the change of bank account and the new IBAN for the payment.