Avoiding internet scams
Avoid internet scams when making payments to our trust account.
In today's digital age, email has become an integral part of our lives. However, it is important to be aware of risks associated with email usage. Law Society inspectors have advised of situations where scammers have infiltrated email inboxes of other law firms or their clients altering documents to make them appear as if they are coming from the law firm.
Here are some ways in which scammers operate to infiltrate emails, and how you can protect yourself.
Password Attacks
There are various ways scammers can guess your email and password. For example they:
- Scroll through your social media sites to obtain names of your pets, children and favourite beach.Then using automated software they run combinations of these words with numbers until the password is ‘hacked’.
- Use automated software to try common dictionary words or simple combinations of characters.
- ‘Acquire’ information from shopping websites. Most of us have previously made an online purchase from an overseas website. Usually, these websites require you to sign on and register with an email and password.We can be generally lazy when it comes to internet security.Many of us typically use the same or similar passwords for all websites and email accounts! These passwords can be leaked as part of a previous data breach and then listed for sale on nefarious websites.
What happens after they obtain your password?
Scammers may simply monitor your incoming email until they see that you are about to pay a large bill, a deposit on a house purchase or to transfer money for a court proceeding.
Let’s say for example you are about to pay a deposit for a house purchase.We typically email you a deposit slip attached to an email.The scammer is then able to open the attachment and alter the bank account number using photoshop before it is opened by you.
The law society inspectorate explains that scammers will buy inactive bank accounts from former international students, so that it appears the money is being transferred to a New Zealand bank account.Once you have made payment, the funds are then immediately wired offshore. It is usually impossible to recover these funds.
Yes, but it would never happen to me…
We like to think we are immune, but sadly all of us now face this risk when completing electronic transactions.Last year there were more than 15,000 reported instances of fraud, and kiwis lost over $35M.
Law Society inspectors have identified that lawyers are being targeted because we are often involved in transactions with large sums of money.
What we do to avoid being scammed as a firm
When we make payments of your funds out of our trust account, we phone the parties involved on the other side of the transaction and ask them to confirm their bank account number by telephone. This has now become standard practice for many law firms. We strongly encourage you to also adopt this practice.
What can I do to avoid being scammed?
Remember to remain cautious when interacting with emails and messages, and maintain strong, unique passwords. Regularly updating your security software and employing safe browsing practices will significantly reduce the risk of scammers penetrating your personal email.
If you have not paid funds to our trust account previously, then before you make a payment to us, please telephone our office on 09 368 1810 to confirm our trust account number.
This applies whether you are paying an invoice for the first time or contributing funds towards a court or property settlement.
Another safeguard is that if you have to pay us a large sum, you set up a payment of a smaller amount for the day before and then phone us to check that it arrived safely.For example, if you have to transfer $100,000 for your contribution to a house purchase, set up a payment of $10 for the previous day and check with us by telephone that we have received the smaller amount.
