Business Fraud

We strive to provide the best service, and part of that includes providing customer education that helps to keep your financial information safe.

REMEMBER:

Our employees will never reach out to customers via phone or email to request personal information such as bank account numbers, debit or credit card numbers, expiration dates, personal identification numbers (PIN), usernames or passwords unless a customer initiates the call.

If you are unsure if a request is authentic, please contact us at 1.800.385.8664 or 1.800.FULTON.4

We encourage you to be aware of some of the more common types of scams targeting businesses:

• Diverted payments scam - A company will receive an invoice from a scammer requesting payment by wire transfer. Usually, the payment request from the scammer will be sent from a "spoofed email," or an email that looks very similar to the one the company would send payment, but with additional letters and symbols. The scammer will then route the payment to an account.
• Business Email compromise - A business is contacted via email and asked to wire funds to pay an invoice to a vendor or business with which they have previously conducted business. However, the scammer requesting the transfer often will "spoof" the email. After the unknowing business transfers the money, the funds are wired to the scammer, who then pockets the funds and closes the email that was used to initially communicate with the business.
• Executive wire requests scam - A request from a scammer will be sent to an employee in a company's accounting area, and look to be from the CEO or a top executive. The email will ask the employee to wire funds directly to an account they have specified as belonging to the executive. Of course, the account is not that of the executive, but belongs to the scammer. This scam occurs when the CEO or executive's email has been hacked.
• New customer scam - A company will be contacted by a scammer, posing as a new customer that is located overseas. The scammer will then request a large purchase and overpay with a check or ACH payment. The overpayment is then immediately followed by a request for the difference to be wired to another party they identify as a "shipper" which is controlled by the scammer.

Protecting Yourself And Your Accounts

Learn more about scams that could affect your business from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). As a partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI, IC3 is committed to educating the public about cyber fraud and providing valuable information about recent scams and how to prevent them.