Each year, more and more businesses fall prey to direct deposit diversion scams. Learn about the mistakes other New York businesses made and implement these best practices, so your company doesn't get ripped off by these fraudsters.
Transcript:
There’s an important scam New York business owners need to know about called Direct Deposit Diversion Fraud.
It cost business owners over a million dollars every month!
Hi, I’m Bill Elkins with Baron Payroll. What exactly is direct deposit diversion fraud?
It’s when a cyber-criminal gets you to change your employee’s direct deposit bank account to theirs. So, on payday, you think you’re paying your employee, but you’re not. You’ve paid the criminal instead!
How does this happen?
It’s easy! All the criminal has to do is get your employee’s name, and email address, and find out where they work.
This can be done in multiple ways. The criminal finds the information on your company website, from an email, or by looking the person up on their social media and checking their Facebook page or LinkedIn profile.
Then the criminal poses as your employee and sends you a fake email asking you to change your employee’s direct deposit bank account.
Can’t your company just get the money back?
I wish! These crooks know exactly what they’re doing. They ask you to change the direct deposit bank account to a debit card. Once it’s loaded (the debit card) it’s virtually impossible to get the money back.
The fraudsters on their end can automatically pull funds off these cards and deposit them into offshore bank accounts. This makes it incredibly difficult to trace and retrieve your money.
How can you avoid getting ripped off by this scam?
It’s simple. Unless the employee hands you a direct deposit bank account change in person, you must go the extra mile.
Every time you get an email request to change the direct deposit bank account, you or someone at your company must make a phone call. You must talk to your employee every time and verify the email request as real.
Don't fall prey to direct deposit diversion scams. Let us save you from getting ripped off by fraudsters.
