17 Aug Email fraud and Pay ID

By David Robinson

Simple way to protect your business from scammers!

How often have you heard of a business owner paying a supplier account via their internet banking using the supplier’s bank account details they received from an emailed tax invoice, only to find out later that the supplier’s email has been hacked (ie intercepted and bank account details changed) and the business owners funds were actually transferred to a scammers account instead. This has happened to a bank client recently, with the client losing over $100,000!

Unfortunately, this situation is one of many types of scams and is becoming more common, with Australian businesses losing up to $227 million per year (and growing!) in email and payment redirection scams.

As a first line of defense for this type of cybercrime, it is imperative that you check the suppliers  bank account details by phone before transferring funds to the supplier, especially when you are paying the supplier for the first time or if the supplier is stating that their bank account details have changed. Also, make sure you obtain the suppliers phone number independently and not from the ‘suspicious’ email.

Alternatively, a more secure and easy way of paying and receiving payments from businesses (and personal payments) is to use  

PayID is a secure payment platform now used by over 100 Australian banks, credit union and building societies

Why use PayID?

1. PayID payments happen instantly between PayID authorized accounts across the different banks
2. Your bank account details are linked to your PayID which can be your phone number, email address, ABN/ACN number. The PayID is easier to remember and more secure than having your bank account details on a tax invoice.
3. PayID helps protect you from scammers who can intercept your invoices and change the payment details to their own. With a confirmation step before the payment is made, payers can check that their funds are going to the right person or business, before submitting the transaction.
4. You can create more than one PayID for your accounts (business or personal).

Setting up PayID for your business is a very simple process. Refer to PayID to find out how to set up or pay with PayID with your bank, credit union, or building society.

If you haven’t already done so, to protect your business from email scammers I would encourage you to implement these simple and easy changes into your business as we have recently done at Robinson Sewell Partners.

For more information on cybercrime and what you can do to prevent cybercrime impacting your business, refer to links below:

Australian Cyber Security Centre:  https://www.cyber.gov.au/

Australian Banking Association: https://www.ausbanking.org.au/australian-banks-encourage-customers-to-use-payid-to-combat-scams/

CBA: https://www.commbank.com.au/business/security/signals.html

NAB: https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nabrwd/About-Us/security/documents/nab-cyber-security-toolkit-pdf.pdf

ANZ: https://www.anz.com.au/security/

Westpac: https://www.westpac.com.au/security/