How a Scammer ended up not getting our £20k — and buying my staff Pizza

Pretty much every business is targeted daily, by scammers who are out to steal company money. We face that problem too, just the same as everyone else. And of course, I’ve taken steps to combat the risks — increasing security using 2-Step Authorisation and so on.

However, none of that stops the constant stream of scam attempts, that are forwarded to me by our staff who wonder if they are genuine.
I realised that many sales and accounting staff-members were simply not aware of just how far and how deep some of these scammers are willing to go. So I decided to play along with the next one, hoping to show how conniving they can be.

But even then, I had no idea how far this scammer would take things!

I didn’t have to wait long. Very soon an email from a scammer pretending to be my brother, the other Director of our company, appeared in my inbox. I knew immediately that it was a scam — not only because the email was sent from a Virgin Media account, but also (the real giveaway!) because my brother never signs himself as ‘John’; he has always been known as ‘Jack’. (Yes, his legal name really is John… but that’s a whole other story in itself).

The bank account he is using is a personal Monzo bank account. The amount requested is £300 less than the standard daily transfer limit of £20,000 for most banks. If the victim has already made any transfers that day then the transaction would still go through (unless the victim had already spent more than £300).

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to put my plan into action. So I resolved to let this scammer believe that I was going to send the money — and, to keep him emailing, I decided to drop in a few made-up questions. (Note: I do not know anyone called Terri — this is completely made up!)

And then, after waiting another 10 minutes, I sent this. It’s not the way I would normally talk to anyone (even my brother!) in an email — but I hoped the style would make the scammer believe I had fallen for his scam.

Even at this stage, you can already see how far he was willing to take the lie. I decided to try and push him a little more, to see how much further he would go.

He actually attached a genuine-looking invoice from an authentic UK Company to the email. (I have blanked it out, as they were clearly not involved or complicit.)

I wasn’t in a meeting. I was letting his greed sink in.

I just about passed out when I saw the transaction hit our bank account! I never thought in a million years that any scammer would ever actually send us money! The payment landed in an account that we never use, so there was no other balance in there. Just the scammer’s £25.

I decided to treat the staff to Domino’s.

This whole episode really goes to show how ready and willing these people are to lie and to steal. I genuinely hope this scammer really does choose to take a different path and change his life.