Authorities in Lethbridge are now issuing a warning for local businesses about emails that are appearing to come from legitimate employees asking for wire transfers of money.
Police say the scammers pose at owners, managers, or someone else in place of authority with the company with the express purpose of tricking employees into sending out funds.
There were two reported instances of the scam over the weekend, and in one of those cases, the employee who received the call actually made contact with the person who supposedly sent it and the attempt was stopped.
In the other attempt, no such steps were taken and the scammers were able to secure two wire transfers, totaling about $160,000.
Police believe that the people responsible for these types of crimes are clearly doing research to access the names of legitimate employees and create fake e-mail accounts.
However, often with these accounts, there are clear signs they could be a scam like extra letters in the name or other errors.
In order to protect against these types of scams, police are reminding employees to always verify any type of money transfer activity with their supervisors, even if they come from a legitimate e-mail address.
