The Hawaiʻi Police Department is warning the public about a recently reported e-mail scam in which several individuals reported unauthorized changes to their payroll direct deposit accounts.

In this scam, commonly referred to as a Business Email Compromise payroll scam (BEC), the scammer utilizes a real employee’s name to send an email to that person’s human resources or finance department.

The email will usually be sent from a fictitious account, but may appear similar to the victim’s name.  The scammer will ask for the individual’s direct deposit to be moved to a different bank (utilized by the scammer) and will submit associated paperwork via this email account. Since the email uses an employee’s name and similar email address the change is then processed. The victim may not realize this happened until they don’t receive their next direct deposit.

Variations of this scam utilize popular cash transfer applications as the sender claiming a large deposit or refund and request the user to click on a link to confirm.

Police advise anyone who receives a similar email request to first verify it is legitimate. One way to do this is by personally contacting the sender either in a separate email, via telephone, or in person. Also, if an email contains a website link to click on to update account information or to make a payment, police advise the public to open a separate internet window and navigate directly to the website to ensure the request is valid.

Photo credit: Hawaiʻi County Police Department