I’m a trainee solicitor who almost fell for gift card ruse when a scammer impersonated my boss on email

Admittedly it did seem a slightly strange request at the time, but eager to please, Alex grabbed his building pass and headed towards the exit of the office.

Alex, who didn’t want to give his real name, almost fell victim to a scammer posing as his boss – and it would have seen him lose hundreds of pounds.

Like most people in such situations, he didn’t immediately realise something was wrong.

As a trainee solicitor, in his first year of a training contract, Alex was keen to make a positive impression. So when he received an email from the managing partner at his firm, he not only jumped at the chance to help, but also felt he had little other option but to do so.

‘I was sitting at my desk on a normal Monday,’ Alex said, ‘and I had an email come into my inbox that looked like it was from the managing partner of the firm.’

The email asked Alex to step outside to run an errand for the partner.

‘Being a trainee, I thought: “well blo*dy hell, if the managing partner is getting me to do something then I had better do it”.’

‘I was getting my coat on and heading out when I got another email that said “give me your phone number and I’ll text you”, so I sent my number and he started texting me.’

‘He was texting me “have you left yet”, so I was hurrying out of the office and then he asked me to go to the Apple Store to get some gift cards.’

‘He said he was doing a presentation next week and needed them to give out as prizes, so I asked how many he needed.’

Luckily, Alex didn’t get as far as the Apple Store.

‘As soon as I got out of the office, alarm bells started ringing,’ he said.

‘The weird thing was that he didn’t actually specify how many he wanted, he just said to tell him when I was there.’

‘Initially, because of the shock of supposedly having been emailed by the big boss, the adrenaline was like “oh God I had better do this”.’

He said: ‘By the time I got outside and my brain had a second or two to actually catch up I thought “actually, this is strange”.’

‘I’ve met this guy, and he’s nice. I’m not sure he’d do something like that. Why is he asking me to get Apple gift cards? It’s weird’

Alex added: ‘In hindsight there were a lot of red flags, but even when I thought this, I still wasn’t sure that it wasn’t actually him.’

Alex called the managing partner on his work phone, but he didn’t pick up. Given the urgency of the messages, this seemed to show that something wasn’t quite right.

When a Microsoft Teams message also went unanswered, it confirmed it wasn’t his boss on the other end of the text message chain.

‘I reported it to IT,’ Alex said, ‘They were quite non-plussed to be honest, I think it has happened before.’

Alex was told to block the number and report the email address it as a phishing email.

‘They’d made it quite cleverly made a fake email with the name of the managing partner,’ he said.

‘So it looked like I was getting the email from the managing partner, because it said his name. It wasn’t an internal address, but I thought maybe he was emailing from his personal account.’

Ultimately, the scammer in question had targeted Alex because he was a new starter, allowing them to capitalise on him not questioning the email’s external origin.

‘I hadn’t been working there for very long, now I know that you wouldn’t use a personal email to contact someone at work, but I was thinking “he’s the managing partner, he can do what he wants”,’ Alex said.

‘Because of the power imbalance between us, I thought I should just do what he said.’

What are gift card scams?

These scams might be just one of a countless number constantly preying on the public, but what sets them apart is their targeted nature.

Its easy to spot a scam trying to sell housing repairs or car insurance when you don’t own a house or drive a car, but its not so simple when the scammer has done their research -especially when they capitalise on a vulnerability such as the victim being new to their job.

Graham Cluley, independent cybersecurity analyst, told This is Money: ‘Gift card scams are highly prevalent. 

‘Typically you are contacted by someone claiming to be your boss or a relative, asking you to urgently purchase a gift card on their behalf, and share the gift card number with them.’

Gift cards are difficult to trace and refund, and can be bought very easily by victims.

Once the victim has purchased the gift cards, the scammer will usually ask them to send them the gift card codes, then transferring the balance or selling it to other criminals.

Cluley said: ‘Fraudsters can use gift cards like cash – for instance, they might make in-app purchases from fake apps on the Google or Apple app stores, funnelling the gift card money into a ‘legitimate’ bank account. 

‘It’s also not unusual to see gift cards used to make purchases on Ebay, Amazon, or Steam.

‘The number of gift card scam reports and losses have been in the rise for years. Retailers are being encouraged to alert consumers about the risks of gift card scams.

‘What we need to do is raise awareness of the problem, and repeat a very simple message: Gift cards are for gifts, not for payments. If your “boss” contacts you and demands you urgently buy a gift card, don’t.’

How can you spot a gift card scam?

Hopefully after reading about Alex’s experience, anyone who is asked to purchase gift cards will think twice before doing so.

If you think someone might be scamming you, it is best to double check with the person you think is contacting you – whether this is your boss or your brother.

Rather than replying to them on whichever platform they have contacted you on, use an alternative method to get in touch with them, preferably by calling them on a number you know is theirs, or by speaking to them in person.

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