Calgary's McKnight Hockey Association had nearly $100K stolen in email scam

[Faust]

Quite a blow to one of our local hockey associations:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3273389/wa...in-email-scam/

“Our treasurer believed she was answering emails and communicating between myself and the president of the association….asking her to wire some money,” said Srecko Zizakovic, vice president of the McKnight Hockey Association. “So I was quite shocked to hear that I had somehow authorized the release of almost $145,000. I almost had a heart attack on the spot.”

[Faust]

Edmonton minor hockey association thwarts costly email scam:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3277234/ed...ly-email-scam/

[simmer2]

We had the same scam happen at our business.

The scammers used our email signature and knew who made the banking decisions.

Almost lost 93k.

[Northendzone]

I am sure whomever at McKnight feels horrible about this. I guess the guys that used to send me 10 or so emails a week indicating that I was over my data limit on my shaw account have moved on to a new scam.

One of the news casts had text of the email sent to the Edmonton association and I thought the email had an awkward tone to it.

Always surprises me how these guys can dream up the technology to steal money or your personal info - but they continue to struggle with sentence structure. When was the last time you received a phishing email that looked properly written.

[Ace]

Received something similar, very targeted based on the titles found on our public website. Only since the tone of the requester varied slightly did it raise flags to look at the originating e-mail address.

[Nufy]

Do these people talk to each other at all ?

[FlamingHomer]

What surprises me is that there is that much money in the account. Are parents overpaying for their registration? It's almost the end of the season and there is still that much surplus? Who knows how much was left after the heist.

[GordonBlue]

did nothing in this woman's head shout to her any warnings?
wiring over $100,000 via e-mail communications?
that's a heck of a lot of money for a hockey association.
would love to know where she wired it to.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

What kind of morons set up an account like this and don't make it 2 signatures required to conduct business?

Edit: the article states their account was 2 signatures required but somehow they were able to do this with only the one auth.

I wonder if someone at RBC screwed up big time and is getting fired. Not sure how else you could wire that much money without proper authorization.

[TurdFerguson]

While it's reasable think alarm bells should have been ringing for her, keep in mind most of these positions are volunteer run, often by people with more desire to help then hands on experience. Not saying that's the case here - I dont know, but it's been my experience with my kids.

[habernac]

It's the association I belong to. I can't imagine how crappy the treasurer feels, but that's exactly what you get when volunteers are involved. Expensive mistake, but I bet it doesn't happen again.

[Northendzone]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

did nothing in this woman's head shout to her any warnings?
wiring over $100,000 via e-mail communications?
that's a heck of a lot of money for a hockey association.
would love to know where she wired it to.

I can only speak to my association and I believe that at one time we had a much larger reserve than this. The reserve is built up over many years.

I have to admit I am unsure what the correct size of reserve is though, o how exactly it gets built up.

I am going to be interested if all the other associations in calgary chip in and make a donation to mcknight to help rebuild thier reserve.

[calgarywinning]

Just gonna suggest an additional bank account that is not accessible for reserve funds. Board or group have to transfer in larger amounts outside the normal cashflow budgets.

[curves2000]

In this case it does appear that common sense may not have played into consideration given the size of the wire transfer.

I suspect it was the organizations Treasurer who should have known that most of the expenses paid from the account where usually smaller sums of money and almost always paid by cheque.

The only time I can see a wire payment being sent from a community hockey account would be am international expenses for tournaments or other costs where a cheque from Canada may not be sufficient.

For those wondering how this was allowed to happen when it was "2 to sign", wire payments generally would be generally keyed into the system and then sent off with the expectation that the bank employee performing the wire verified all the account details and that management signed off on it as well.

There is a possibility that the wire was sent from an online banking portal which would negate a "signature" or that there was an error on behalf of the bank which is possible.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Always surprises me how these guys can dream up the technology to steal money or your personal info - but they continue to struggle with sentence structure. When was the last time you received a phishing email that looked properly written.

I've heard that's by design. It's a way to weed out the people who will take one look at it and realize it's a scam. They don't want to waste time dealing with someone who responds to the first message but will eventually figure out it's a scam before sending any money.

By sending an initial message that has many obvious errors, they know that anyone who responds didn't notice those errors and is more likely to be easier to scam.

Also, I believe that with the original "Nigerian Prince" type of scams, the messages were poorly written so that the recipient would feel superior to the scammer. You're less likely to suspect that someone is trying to pull something over on you if you think that you're much smarter than they are.

[Northendzone]

^ interesting insight into the "art of the deal"

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by habernac

It's the association I belong to. I can't imagine how crappy the treasurer feels, but that's exactly what you get when volunteers are involved. Expensive mistake, but I bet it doesn't happen again.

sorry to hear that. hope it doesn't hurt the kids too much.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

What kind of morons set up an account like this and don't make it 2 signatures required to conduct business?

Edit: the article states their account was 2 signatures required but somehow they were able to do this with only the one auth.

I wonder if someone at RBC screwed up big time and is getting fired. Not sure how else you could wire that much money without proper authorization.

Mistakes happen.

My wife was treasurer for a team last year. The manager and herself signed papers to make the account require 2 signatures. Despite this, the account was setup incorrectly and they only realized this when the cheques came in and there was only one signing line.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by curves2000

In this case it does appear that common sense may not have played into consideration given the size of the wire transfer.

I suspect it was the organizations Treasurer who should have known that most of the expenses paid from the account where usually smaller sums of money and almost always paid by cheque.

The only time I can see a wire payment being sent from a community hockey account would be am international expenses for tournaments or other costs where a cheque from Canada may not be sufficient.

For those wondering how this was allowed to happen when it was "2 to sign", wire payments generally would be generally keyed into the system and then sent off with the expectation that the bank employee performing the wire verified all the account details and that management signed off on it as well.

There is a possibility that the wire was sent from an online banking portal which would negate a "signature" or that there was an error on behalf of the bank which is possible.

With respect to the size of the wire... I can't remember if it was something I read or something I heard when they were talking about this on the Fan, but the association apparently put a bunch of their money in a GIC or some other interest bearing account for most of the season to earn a bit of interest until expenses were due. This, to me, helps explain why the Treasurer might have thought it made sense to be transferring such a large sum.

[WhiteTiger]

This is a fairly common scam, and happens more often than one would think. The sum that these particular scammers got is a bit higher than usual, but this isn't uncommon.