A COMPANY has been accused of wiring over a million dollars from a lawsuit to a fraudster, causing a major new legal battle.
Sinacom North America, a manufacturing company, is suing the law firm, Clark Hill, for allegedly sending the business’s settlement money to a hacker.
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Sinacom North America won a settlement for $1.1 million in August with the manufacturing company Golden Technologies, according to the complaint filed Monday.
The lawsuit claims that scammers had broken into Sinacom North America email addresses to impersonate executives and target the settlement.
In what the filing called an “obvious scam,” the fraudster instructed lawyer Steven Richman, who’s also named in the lawsuit, to wire the money to a JP Morgan Chase bank account for a company that Sinacom claimed was fake.
Within the email, there was said to have been “poor grammar and typos,” which the company believes should have given a clue to the law firm.
Richman was said to have been communicating with the scammers for days, even after he found out the email was compromised.
The manufacturing company said that the law firm never called to verify any of the information, despite previously being given wire instructions to the company’s Bank of America account.
Instead, they communicated directly through email, which led to $1.1 million being “recklessly wired” to the wrong account.
Sinacom said the firm, “failed to realize their egregious mistake until it was too late,” according to the suit.
Clark Hill released a statement to ABA Journal claiming that not all of the information was provided in the lawsuit.
“Naturally, all of the facts are not contained in the filed complaint. We will be defending the firm as the case moves forward and will have nothing further to add at this time,” the law firm stated.
The U.S. Sun has reached out to Clark Hill and Steven Richman for comment.
OTHER SCAMMING STORIES
Scammers have been using vicious tactics to steal thousands of dollars from not just companies, but hard-working people.
Lisa Miles, A Southern California resident, was startled when she was scrolling through Instagram and got a fake alert saying that she was hacked.
She tried to exit the pop-up but when she couldn’t, she decided to call the number on her screen.
Top tips on avoiding scams from a bank
As scams become more sophisticated with the use of artificial intelligence, it is important you know how to spot a scam:
- Be skeptical of online deals that seem too good to be true, especially on social media.
- Scammers will often use tactics to make you panicked so you make quick decisions – be cautious if you are told to take immediate action and verify who has contacted you.
- Chase Bank warns customers to “never return any unexpected funds without calling Chase first.”
- Never send money to someone you have only spoken to online or by phone as this is likely a romance scam.
- Unless you 100% know who you are talking to, never give someone remote access to your device.
- Never accept help from strangers at an ATM and always be vigilant when making withdrawals.
- Do not send money or click any links indicating that you have won a prize.
Source: Chase.com
The man on the other line said a hacker had gotten into her account and was going to use it to purchase illegal images of children.
“The problem is, he said, tonight at 7 pm, the hacker is taking $25,000 out of your bank account to buy this pornography,” Miles told KTLA.
The person then connected Miles to someone who claimed to be a Wells Fargo representative.
He told her that in order to stop the potential fraud, she had to take out the $25,000 from her account and deposit it into a Bitcoin machine by her house.
“All the time [the man was] saying, please don’t worry, but it’s very important that we get this money out tonight because that transaction of your porn that you just bought will go through and you’ll be arrested, that type thing,” Miles told KTLA.
The scammer told her that the money would be put back into her account the following day, so she did what she was told.
However, she quickly realized she had fallen for a scam.
“I just cried, it was so violating,” she told KTLA.
“It’s so wrong, it’s so mean.”
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