Email scammers extract over $300m a month from American suits' pockets

While you're sweating to make an honest crust, email scammers are counting at least $301m in untaxed takings every month in the US alone, according to research by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The FinCEN agency tallied the figures for 2018 (PDF) and found the number of suspicious activity reports describing …

[John Slater]

Love that logo. The binary translates to "FinCEN"

[Dave 32]

Logo

In ASCII? Why not EBCDIC?

Dave

P.S. I'll get my coat. It's the one with the punched cards in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

...at least $301m in untaxed takings..

Untaxed? So that's the problem then...

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: ...at least $301m in untaxed takings..

Ask Al Capone about not paying income taxes. He got a long stay at the Club Fed holiday location in SF Bay called Alcatraz for that. If nothing else they need to pay income taxes as that is always a handy charge if nothing else will stick.

[Blackjack]

So...

If this keeps up, e-mails alone won't be enough and vendors will have to get... a landline!

Even so, having to call a phone number to verify every vendor e-mail is gonna slow down things a lot.

[Anonymous Coward]

In these days of ERP, workflows and procurement/payment controls, how can an invoice just simply get paid without multiple approvals? Or is everyone in on the scam?

[Securitymoose]

"Remember, Terry, you only get out of life what you are prepared to put in...

...plus a bit extra if you can find a few mugs."

Arthur Daley