The U.S. payday loan company MoneyTree, with offices in Vancouver, has been duped by a simple “CEO phishing” email which ordered an employee to send the CEO all the personal data of some 1,500 MoneyTree employees. Except, the email wasn’t from the CEO. Scammers counting on the instant obedience of employees when the boss barks were rewarded with information with which to steal employee identities galore. One favorite is to make up phony tax returns and claim a huge refund. The CEO email scam has worked with other firms in the U.S. and maybe in Canada. MoneyTree informed employees of the breach of security at the beginning of March. The real CEO, Dennis Bassford said: “Moneytree was apparently targeted by a scam in which the scammer impersonated me and asked for an emailed copy of certain information about the company’s payroll including team member names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates and (tax) information.”
