watch out - more scams

[Catherine]

This one from the NAEA page on facebuck (sic):

 

John R. Dundon

Yesterday at 2:07pm

Scammers almost got me and my team today. We are very particular but these scammers are getting increasingly clever.

Email title was innocuous enough reading 'Help with Tax Issues' - we get about 5-6 of these per day originating from my tax blog. Most are deadbeats but this particular email referenced that they were a referral of an existing client, asserted that we had met briefly at a social function, referenced a bike race in which I participated and included links as well as attachments for 'efficiency' purposes because they 'knew' me to be 'trustworthy and forthright'.

The email completely disarmed me and I almost bit...

Before reaching out to the 'prospect' (or clicking on any links or opening attachments in the email) I called the client to thank her for the referral only to learn that her server had been hacked. Turns out yes indeed the email originated from a scammer intent on getting into my server.

This is the 3rd type of incident of attempted hacking that has happened to me and my team in the last week or so all with increasing sophistication.

Tread lightly y'all. This shit is getting scary.

[SaraEA]

Now this IS scary.  Thankfully Catherine was wide awake.  What do we do?  Never open any attachments without calling client to confirm s/he really sent it?

[Roberts]

That's scary.

Met with a new client on Tuesday who was referred to me because her husband died recently. As I'm ready to leave I mention to be careful - she WILL be getting scammers calling her and she needs to be careful. She and her brother laughed and said she knew it. She called me late yesterday to tell me she'd already received two calls since our meeting telling her she hadn't filed her taxes. It's getting scary how efficient these people are.

[Abby Normal]

I almost clicked on one the other day. It was from a client and the link was to a Google drive file, even when I hovered over the link. But her AOL email account had been hacked. So, yes, best to never click on any links or attachments, and use good malware protection.

[FDNY]

1 hour ago, Abby Normal said:

I almost clicked on one the other day. It was from a client and the link was to a Google drive file, even when I hovered over the link. But her AOL email account had been hacked. So, yes, best to never click on any links or attachments, and use good malware protection.

The only links I ever click on are yours.