A Summerside, P.E.I., ice cream parlour owner is warning others after falling victim to a sophisticated email scam which cost his business more than $5,000.
Daniel Meister, owner of Holman’s Ice Cream Parlour, said he received an email in February which appeared to be from a supplier he had contacted in December for a quote.
“Come February an email that I thought was my supplier basically said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to check in, I wanted to see how things are going. Are you ready to process the order? Here is a new invoice.’ So, I went to the bank without even thinking about it and sent the wire transfer through,” said Meister.
“It was just over $5,000 dollars. The scammer obviously had access to my emails with my supplier. They were pulling past details from those emails. They gained my trust. They matched the signature line. A lot of the languages they were using was very similar.”
A few days later, Meister received another email claiming the payment hadn’t been received. He said he checked his bank account, realized the money had been transferred, and contacted the supplier.
“It was about 8 p.m. on a Friday evening. That’s when I sent that email to my supplier and they came back right away and said, ‘This isn’t me’,” he said.
Scott Beck, owner of BeckTek, a cybersecurity company in Riverview, N.B., said such scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated, often employing AI.
“We’re seeing more and more scams happening in Atlantic Canada. We first started trying to educate about this about 10 years ago. It wasn’t as sophisticated,” said Beck.
“You can look at certain things to figure out what a scam might be to protect yourself, but now it’s getting so good using artificial intelligence against us, because the bad guys tend to use the most modern technology to fool us into taking actions and it just continues to get scarier.”
He said since December, his company has helped eight organizations in Atlantic Canada targeted by similar scams, with losses as high as $600,000.
“We’re not talking about large companies. We’re talking manufacturing companies. We’re talking other organizations, and the dollar amounts just keep getting higher,” he said.
Beck advises businesses to verify all payment requests by phone before sending funds.
“When you get a request to send money somewhere you have to stop and take a breath and really look at who sent that request. Don’t respond to the email because then you’re responding to the bad guys,” he said. “Pick up the phone and call someone.”
Meister, who reported the incident to police and his bank, said he doesn’t expect to recover the stolen funds.
“For me, it was a normal business transaction. It was an invoice identical to the ones I’ve seen before. The communications, the signature line of the emails were identical to what I’ve received before. The person I was communicating with who wasn’t my supplier had details of past conversations of what I had to gain my trust,” he said.
Despite his experience with cybersecurity training, Meister said the scam slipped through his defenses.
“I’ve been told things to look out for and, and generally I’m able to identify it. This slipped through the cracks of my security. So, double check things like emails, double check things like banking information before you send money, get on the phone and call your supplier if you have a relationship like that with them. Just be careful,” he said.
“I think it’s important to recognize that the scams happen. We all, at some point or another, probably will fall for them. I don’t think I’ll ever get my money back, but hopefully, maybe they shut down the bank account or make it harder for these people to scam others in the future.”
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