- Joined
- Mar 26, 2014
- Messages
- 1,587
Back on September 8th ,one of our suppliers was hit with a Ransomware for a half million dollars. We didn’t know at the time and we received an email from them. I guess it was a carrying a virus, which our anti virus caught. But they gained access to our email.
Long story short, they changed the email filters some how. Some of our clients were then sent emails without us knowing saying we had changed our banking. They were now to send it to another bank account. 5 customers sent payment to this bank account.
I was taken for $80,000 plus. According to the Police it was my customers who were frauded. But according to a fraud lawyer our customers paid in good faith so the only way to get any money is to find the hackers! This does not seem very possible at this point in time.
The email filters were changed so any emails from these clients were sent to archives. They would then send and reply from there without us knowing.
Before any one, victim blames me. We had no way of knowing this was happening. We thought we had adequate anti viral and password protocol in place and according to our IT guy ,we did.
I just want to let small business owners, especially in construction to be very vigilant. The RCMP has said 1.2 billion dollars have been scammed from small businesses , mostly in construction in Canada.
Again I don’t need to be told. Did you not change passwords? Don’t you keep track of emails. I could say the same about my clients sending money to a bank account on the other side of the country without a phone call to me.These people are good at what they do. I just want to save someone else from what I have had to deal with. $80 grand is a ton of money , but we will okay and keep forging ahead! I still firmly believe that most people are good. It’s just the few that spoil it .
Martin
Long story short, they changed the email filters some how. Some of our clients were then sent emails without us knowing saying we had changed our banking. They were now to send it to another bank account. 5 customers sent payment to this bank account.
I was taken for $80,000 plus. According to the Police it was my customers who were frauded. But according to a fraud lawyer our customers paid in good faith so the only way to get any money is to find the hackers! This does not seem very possible at this point in time.
The email filters were changed so any emails from these clients were sent to archives. They would then send and reply from there without us knowing.
Before any one, victim blames me. We had no way of knowing this was happening. We thought we had adequate anti viral and password protocol in place and according to our IT guy ,we did.
I just want to let small business owners, especially in construction to be very vigilant. The RCMP has said 1.2 billion dollars have been scammed from small businesses , mostly in construction in Canada.
Again I don’t need to be told. Did you not change passwords? Don’t you keep track of emails. I could say the same about my clients sending money to a bank account on the other side of the country without a phone call to me.These people are good at what they do. I just want to save someone else from what I have had to deal with. $80 grand is a ton of money , but we will okay and keep forging ahead! I still firmly believe that most people are good. It’s just the few that spoil it .
Martin
