4 ms·

> the worst that could happen is a wasted call to the bank. Well, no. The worst (and probably very likely) thing that would happen is they would call the bank,

> the worst that could happen is a wasted call to the bank. Well, no. The worst (and probably very likely) thing that would happen is they would call the bank, the bank would block withdrawals from their payroll processor, and they would miss payroll for that period. This could also have severe financial consequences for the company's employees, given how many people live paycheck to paycheck. Small businesses are constantly inundated with all varieties of scam calls, so it's not at all unreasonable to be suspicious of someone who calls you out of the blue and says, "Your payroll accounts have been hacked, and you’re about to lose a great deal of money. You should contact your bank immediately." The odds of ever getting a call from a good samaritan like Brian Krebs are vanishingly small, while you're probably getting called by scammers every day.

BoorishBears 7y ago
That's not true though... He says right there, the fraudulent payroll payments were many times the normal amount and not part of the normal cycle. In fact, from what he described, even the bank would have picked up on the fraudulent transactions upon human review. Small businesses are not going to confuse out-of-cycle payroll payments with normal ones, cash flow is way too tight for mistakes like that. - I'm also not saying it's unreasonable to be suspicious of the call, but after that initial suspicion, it's unreasonable not to hang up immediately on the scammer... then make a "sanity call" to bank/payroll processor/both
- perl4ever 7y ago
  This is like asking why people crash planes when one of their instruments is telling them bad information and the others are all working fine. Once you know something important isn't trustworthy, it's easy and likely to become very disoriented as to what you can trust. This is why people reflexively doubt anything particularly out of the ordinary - it might rarely be wrong, but it's far better than becoming paranoid at every drop of a hat.

BoorishBears 7y ago

That's not true though... He says right there, the fraudulent payroll payments were many times the normal amount and not part of the normal cycle. In fact, from what he described, even the bank would have picked up on the fraudulent transactions upon human review. Small businesses are not going to confuse out-of-cycle payroll payments with normal ones, cash flow is way too tight for mistakes like that. - I'm also not saying it's unreasonable to be suspicious of the call, but after that initial suspicion, it's unreasonable not to hang up immediately on the scammer... then make a "sanity call" to bank/payroll processor/both

perl4ever 7y ago
This is like asking why people crash planes when one of their instruments is telling them bad information and the others are all working fine. Once you know something important isn't trustworthy, it's easy and likely to become very disoriented as to what you can trust. This is why people reflexively doubt anything particularly out of the ordinary - it might rarely be wrong, but it's far better than becoming paranoid at every drop of a hat.