In the News: Has your business been hit by scammers?

[Pesso]

Hey Sellers,

Today we’re looking at keeping your business safe online from phishing attacks, with an article from CNBC reporting on an increase in scammers targeting small business owners through social media. I’d love to hear your experiences on this.

CNBC: Phishing scams targeting small business on social media are a ‘gold mine’ for criminals

The article explains that online phishing scams against businesses are on the rise because they are seen as easy targets who don’t have the resources to fight back, and are more likely to pay to get their accounts back. Having your social media and other online credentials being stolen can be absolutely devastating for a business. Losing your accounts can directly lead to a loss of income, since it’s a major marketing and even sales channel. Even more, these scammers often ask for a ransom, and demand you pay to get your account back. 

The article details some of the most common scams, and how to avoid them. It also recommends businesses put a greater emphasis on cybersecurity by enabling Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), and using different strong passwords for separate accounts. 

Luckily we never experienced any online scams when I ran my shop. We definitely weren’t careful enough with creating unique and ultra-secure passwords for everything, which we absolutely should have, and got very lucky to not have had any issues. We really relied so much on our social media accounts for gaining and marketing to our customer base, and I can’t imagine what we would have done if those accounts were compromised. I don’t think we would have paid a ransom, but it would have been devastating to have to start over. 

What’s your perspective:

• Have you experienced any phishing or other scam attempts?

• How do you keep your business safe online?

P.S: If you haven’t already, don’t forget to enable two-step verification on your Square account. You can find more helpful resources on how to protect your business from scams and fraud in our Support Center. 

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Pesso

[rtfulk]

We get emails on a daily basis stating we have a dispute and wanting us to log in to resolve it. It isn't a Square phising scam, mainly American Express. I laugh everyday I get it, because the dispute is from 2020, they don't even change the date.

For trying to keep our business safe we have 2 factor authentication turned on for any site that offers it.

[Pesso]

Oh wow, @rtfulk -- thanks for sharing.

That's so interesting that they come form a fake AmEx email, and that they don't think to update it to make it more convincing. 

If you ever do get one from someone pretending to be Square, definitely please forward them to spoof@squareup.com !

[rtfulk]

@Pesso  I will, I usually forward all phising emails I get to the real company. Hopefully one day there will be a system in place that will make people verify their emails, like logging into a website. Something like a token key and if your token don't match what your email hosting company assigns to you, then the email doesn't go out.

[Lootz]

We receive scam emails about disputes due to broken items or credit card charges and lately, Facebook messages with .zip file attachments stating that they received a broken item and want a refund with "pictures attached". We of course do not open the file. We also have been receiving FB messenger notices from "Help Desk" or "Microsoft Security." stating that our account(s) are being disabled due to not conforming to "policy guidelines" with a link for more information generally to a .zip file or some random website. We don't open those either. Check the names closely. They are often spelled correctly but may contain a hyphen, underscore, or period. Keeps you on your toes but we haven't received anything about or from "Square"...yet.   

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing and for those tips, @Lootz !

It's scary just how many types of scams are out there. I'm so glad you're able to spot them and not click on any of them!

[PLP-]

OH MY GOODNESS! YESSSSSS! I try so hard to familiarise myself with all the sophisticated writings on scams and still even the vendor , I hire to spread the joy of doing business got scammed before , It got to me. I ordered a Logo Designer and forgot to research it's location 1st. It turns out its located in South Africa! I am in Oakland, California. I later kicked myself for that as the company was scammed at the pick up address with my product in hand, They used Bitcoins for payment. I was sorta okay with that. While bitcoins is risky , I thought, well, at best I paid all $400.00 then the 'customs' fees' of an additional $125.00 more, then another $23.00 for the tracking number...issue began. I felt hurt and knew I was scammed AGAIN!!!

I still haven't gotten it resolved while I am in contact with all parties participating in this. I asked for a refund, they could not do it. I asked for a template of my product, they have not done it yet or could not find it. I ask to re-make the entire product at their expense and was asked again to give money to re-duplicate them. Now (3) months later..I am in constant contact and, DHL  did confirm the agent who picked up the product was not connected to them. I loose more money that I care to mention.

[Pesso]

Oh no, I'm so sorry that these got you, @PLP- ! That's so horrible that they're taking advantage of folks trying to get design work done. I really hope you get a better resolution for this. Thank you for sharing!

[Provision]

Scammers have always tried to scam us. A few years back someone called our brick and motor store and wanted to place a big order. Over 20k worth. Wanted to pay for it over the phone with a credit card and someone will come pick up the items. When asked for ID they refused and tried to change the topic on why are we so hard to deal with. We did not proceed with the sale but a few stores in the same industry got scammed by the same people.

Sometimes and esp. during hard times its always good to sit back and just think about it. Practice safe transactions and online practices. Check your credit card statements monthly. You rather lose a risky sale then lose your hard earn money.

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @Provision !

I'm so glad that you took steps to protect yourself and decided to not follow through -- definitely a scam and I'm glad you're safe from it!

It's absolutely easy to get wrapped up and not raise the alarms, especially like you said when things are slow and feeling encouraged by a big sale. 

[MudFire_Deanna]

I've had to use the spoof forwarding address for Square once, and we get a lot of shipping product pottery scams, we have known several people to get social accounts locked which is very scary 😞

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @MudFire_Deanna , and I'm so glad that you're catching them and forwarding over Square ones. 

It's definitely scary out there in a lot of ways -- rooting for ya to keep staying safe!

[tdgjrb]

The dispute scams (mostly via Facebook or Instagram) we have received recently include links to ZIP files that I am sure contain malware. 

We also do a strong event business, and we get a few requests a week asking "do you accept credit cards and can you pay my band/caterer?" etc.

We do not respond to these, but my guess is that they have a stolen credit card that will eventually be disputed by the true card holder and they are trying to extract funds in a harder to trace way.

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @tdgjrb -

We used to get a lot of those "Do you accept credit cards" emails, especially from folks with two first names. I almost got taken by one of them, but they got easier to spot once I realized they were scams. 

That definitely is one way they do it, with stolen cards! 

Stay safe!

[DLRosenberg]

We recently had our AmEx compromised; someone charged all of $25 to our AmEx via Facebook, but it wasn't tied to our Meta Ad account. Very strange and now have to go through the nonsense of changing all the auto pays on that card which is annoying.

what's really been annoying for us is the amount of social media copy cat accounts. They are stealing our content and posting to pretend to be us- and then scamming our customers for readings. It's awful and the social media companies don't seem to care.

[Pesso]

Ah jeez, that's all so frustrating, @DLRosenberg !

I could imagine that with all of the effort you spend on creating original customer educational content, it would be so draining and infuriating to have other accounts just steal it all -- and even more so especially for them to then scam customers! Unbelievable that there's no support or recourse for you from the social media companies.

Hoping it ends soon and gets better -- stay safe!

[lanzagalleryart]

I have a small art gallery/art supply store and have been using Square and building my social media for 7 years. FYI I love the square system. Earlier this year I made the mistake of going into an ad on Facebook. I realized at once it was bogus and got out but not before a person took over my entire account on Facebook & Instagram. I tried to solve the problem with the processes FB has but to no avail. Facebook had no telephone number to call to talk with a live human person which would have solved the issue in 5 minutes. This went on for days. I had built my personal and business presence with pictures and videos and was very active on both their venues. It was sooo upsetting. Then I went further down the rabbit hole.  My son is a techy and he tried to help me. He found on google, a "help/customer service number" for FB and we called it. A suppositively FB representative sucked me into mirroring my phone saying someone in another state was trying to buy crypto with my cc that I had on my fb account. Long story short, I lost $3000 before my son came back into the room and got on the phone and they hung up. Bank America tried to stop it and retrieved $1000 but it was too late for the other $2000.   So now I will NEVER buy from a social media platform, and I will not pay for advertising on any social platform again. I am rebuilding my social media and will use it as a free marketing platform but thats as far as I go. The most disturbing part is FB's horrible customer service. It doesn't look after its customers. We are just a number to them. If you were shopping let's, say in Macy's and pick pocketers were roaming their stores constantly to rob you, their customers, you wouldn't shop their anymore because they obviously don't care about your safety and protect their customers. It is very disturbing. 

[lanzagalleryart]

FYI I am a retired postal illustrator and consider myself as tech savey and yet I was sucked in. Very very upsetting to me at this point. Bank America tried to make me feel better by telling me that some of the most intelligent ceo's in the world are getting taken in by scammers for thousands of dollars. 

[Pesso]

Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear all of this, @lanzagalleryart , but thank you so much for sharing your story here. It's not easy to go through and to relay it, but I hope that by you sharing it can help others.

These scams do get progressively more and more advanced, and it's unfortunately so easy for anyone to fall for them, especially when you're trusting and trying to get things resolved. I'm so sorry this happened and that you lost so much through it. 

That's absurd that Facebook doesn't seem to care or do anything to help in these situations -- and that their negligence only enables more scammers. 

Rooting for you, and hoping things go better moving forward. 

[Candlestore]

I have gotten a FEW emails asking if we except Credit Cards and then that Their Freight company will pick up the order when it is ready.  I tell them Yes it is on our website where you sent me this email from, and that all our shipping is handled buy us with companies such as USPS/UPS/FedEx etc, If you want to pick it up you need to bring proof of identity such as a US drivers License or email it to me with the name Matching the Credit Card.  Then I never hear from them again.  So far the only scammer that hit me was with a skimmer in my store, they read the wifi tag on my business credit card, since I get text alerts whenever a card is used I called the bank immediately and Microsoft, I was able to get the money back.   Now to keep that from happening I have gotten one of those wallets that stops the cards and skimmers from penetrating it and as an added precaution I usually do not carry my wallet on me.  I keep one card in my car that is turned off incase of forgetting my wallet and needing Gas.  I just log in to my banks website turn the card on  get gas, then turn it off again.  My biggest annoyance is the scammers calling my business, or using my number for the business to scam other by spoofing my phone number.  The only way I found this out was someone called me back because of their caller ID.  So now when I answer the phone and no one relies right back I hang up but its time wasted and I need to answer because it could be a customer calling.

[Doran]

No but I'm super paranoid about clicking a bad link.  So I never click anything in an email!  I've received a few weird online orders and a few weird in person issues but never resulted in a major revenue loss.