Five Ways to Stay Scam-Free

With 2025 in full swing and New Year’s resolutions still on your mind, business owners should be sure to include cyber security at the top of their list. To help you stay fraud-free, we’ve put together a list of five common business scams to be aware of this year.

Business Email Compromise: An email phishing scam that typically targets people who pay bills in businesses, government and nonprofit organizations. The fraudster often poses as a vendor or other trusted source who emails an accountant or chief financial officer in an organization. The email asks them to wire money, buy gift cards or send personal information, often for a plausible reason. If money is sent, it goes into an account controlled by the fraudster.

Tips for protection:

• Adopt email authentication protocols to verify the authenticity of incoming emails.
• Always verify the sender through another form of communication such as calling them from a known number (not one in the email) or by emailing them directly to an email you know to be true.
• Enforce multifactor authentication (MFA) across all email accounts within your organization.
• Educate yourself and your team on how to prevent falling victim to email wire fraud.

Phony Invoices: Businesses receive fake invoices demanding payment for products or services never ordered or received. The most common scams involve office supplies, website or domain-hosting services and directory listings. If you look closely, you’ll often see the fine print that identifies the bill as a solicitation. Generally, the amount is small enough not initially to raise a red flag.

Tips for protection:

• Always verify the vendor’s name, address, and contact information against your records, and reach out to them directly to confirm the invoice in you have any doubts.
• Scrutinize invoice details for typos, grammatical errors, unusual pricing, or discrepancies in item descriptions.
• Be wary of urgent requests of payment on an invoice that demands immediate payment without proper verification.
• Educate your employees about invoice scams and how to identify red flags, encouraging them to report any suspicious invoices.

Directory Scams: This scam has plagued businesses large and small for decades. In it, the fraudster attempts to fool businesses into paying for a listing or ad space in a non-existent directory and then the business is billed hundreds of dollars for listing services they didn’t agree to or for ads that were never placed.

Tips for protection:

• Educate your employees about this scam, especially those who receive phone calls on a day-to-day basis.
• Always look closely at your invoices. Make sure the bills are carefully inspected to verify that they aren’t coming from a phony business directory listing company.
• Don’t pay for a service you didn’t request. If you receive an invoice that may be part of this scam, don’t send payment.

Stolen Identity: Fraudsters often pretend to be legitimate businesses to trick consumers. By doing this, fraudsters sometimes set up fake websites using your company name and address. They may also hijack your brand by copying and misusing company logos and website content – to impersonate a business and deceive unsuspecting visitors. In this scam, the company doesn’t necessarily lose money. However, their reputation is tarnished when angry customers duped by fraudsters think the real company is responsible.

Tips for protection:

• Regularly check your business’s credit report for unusual activity.
• Stay informed with the latest online security risks.
• Sign up for electronic notifications from your bank, creditors, and service providers to stay up to date with any changes in your account. Take advantage of VeraBank’s online banking alert features.
• Protect your EIN, account numbers, and other personal information as best as possible.
• Do not share any sensitive information over email, or any web-based service.

Phishing Scams: With phishing scams, fraudsters attempt to steal sensitive information about your business. These scams often appear to be legitimate emails or text messages. However, when you click on the link, you download a virus that captures personal information or loads a form that asks for bank account or credit card details.

Tips for protection:

• Never provide your personal or business information in response to an unsolicited request. If you believe the contact may be legitimate, contact the company yourself through a phone number or contact email you know to be real.
• Never provide your password over the phone or in response to an unsolicited internet request.
• Do not be intimidated by an email or caller who suggests dire consequences if you do not immediately provide the requested information.
• Review account statements regularly to ensure all charges are correct.
• Learn more about how to recognize and avoid phishing scams.

At VeraBank, we’re committed to helping our customers stay on top of fraud. Whether it’s information about safeguarding from fraud or offering products and services to keep your business transactions secure – we can help. Connect with one of our business banking specialists today.