We're sending this update to you because a few of our
clients have been subject to a simple yet highly sophisticated
scam, with one client losing in excess of $600,000. As we share the
story with more people, one-on-one, in compliance committees, at
compliance forums, via our regulatory update subscription service
and elsewhere, we are hearing more variations of the same scam.
People are often unwilling to talk about it, because being caught
is, well, embarrassing.
Here's how it works, as described in our October regulatory
update (for subscribers to our T-REX service):
We have recently been involved with advising clients caught
by a scam targeting financial advisers and their clients. Scammers
are hacking into client email accounts, posing as those clients and
emailing financial advisers to request large withdrawals from the
client's portfolio and payment into a third party bank account.
The scam is sophisticated with the scammers reading through a
client's emails
