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Scammer posing as CEO tries to lure employee with bonus offer in 'corporate scam'
An employee reported being targeted by a scammer impersonating her CEO, who solicited her to buy gift vouchers.
An employee took to Reddit to share that she was contacted by a scammer pretending to be the company's CEO and tried to dupe her of money. In her post, sharing screenshots of the conversation with the scammer, the woman shared that she received the messages on her personal email ID from someone pretending to the CEO of the company she works at.
The screenshot showed a string of emails sent between the two discussing bonus vouchers for employees. The conversation started with the scammer asking the woman if she was available to talk.
Gift vouchers for employees
"I need your help with something important. I want to surprise some of our hardworking employees with bonus vouchers cards as a token of appreciation. This needs to be kept confidential until the surprise is revealed to maintain the element of surprise. Can you assist me with this task discreetly? and rewarded more for carrying out the task," the scammer wrote.
When she asked if the two could discuss this personally after a scheduled meeting, the scammer insisted that it was an urgent matter. "Kindly download the Amazon Pay app, register, Then search Apple Store code voucher under recharges. Please let me know the available values. Can you do that now?" he said.
The woman wrote back asking if she should come to the CEO's office. Panicked, the scammer told her to stay put and purchase the vouchers. "I need you to purchase three quantities of App store code at ₹10,000 then copy and send me the codes on here once done. while I reimburse you before the end of today. Can you get the task done within 3-5mins time?," he wrote.
‘Scammed at work as well?’
The woman said that at first she believed it really was the CEO but realised that she was about to be scammed.
"Now we're getting scammed at work places as well? At first I thought it was intact our CEO but then I felt why would he send an email on my personal email ID? Went ahead and reported," she said.
The post was flooded with comments over similar scams in other companies. "This happened in the company I work as well. Unfortunately, the new joinee ended up losing a large amount of money," said one user.
Another said, "This happened in our office just recently. One of the employees got a mail from "one of our directors" and she ended up sending them ₹4,000. They started asking for more and then she realised what was happening."
