El Paso city bungs $3.2m to email crooks pretending to be bosses

hmm, preferred suppliers not a thing in Texas then?

The last time I dealt with government purchasing it was based upon with a list of known agencies and accounts, to become "known" required a lengthy process of form filling and validation before any money could change hands.

Clearly they were ripped off because they were at best slack and stupid and/or because they were complicit in the theft, either way they should be held accountable rather than just blaiming the "tinternet" for being unsafe and confusing. If they did not know what they were doing then why were they holding the purse strings

Specify financials in the contract

Any money paid by a government entity should always be part of a well-written and verified contract. Any proper contract would include the exact destination of funds along with the payment schedule. At the outset of the contract it should be known "On this day, provided the contracted tasks have been completed in a satisfactory manner, the sum of $300,000 USD is to be transferred from <routing/account number of city's coffers> to <routing/account number of contractor's coffers>". Any changes to the amounts, schedule, or the source/destination should go through the lawyers and the bean counters of both organizations.

Hell, this should apply just as well to all organizations. The CxO / Mayor / Council / Governor / Head of State should never have the authority to just authorize payment or any money transfer without explicit authorization for each transaction by the responsible legal and financial authority. These 'CEO Scams' would be dead in the water if organizations would just follow procedure. The problem, and sole reason the scam exist, is the massive ego of those in power and they want control over everything, especially the check book.

Subtle form of words

"City Attorney Sylvia Firth later acknowledged that the city hadn't been instructed by the police to keep quiet about the fraud, but had simply been advised that it might be better to do so."

Was it the police who 'advised' them to do that or was it their PR department?

I've got this plan for a bridge in London ...

Even though it will only carry pedestrians and isn't really needed to ease congestion, it will have gardens and so forth and will be a real treasure for residents. The £30 million that the government has already provided ran out some while ago so another payment of a few million is needed for more research to be done on this project.

"this kind of fraud is skyrocketing"

I've seen one or two invoice scams in my spam folder. Obviously random. These successful scammers must be studying the companies they're impersonating - or hacking into their email accounts etc. Accounts Payable clerk gets invoice, verifies payee and amount, cuts a check, mails it to scammer's PO Box shown on invoice.

That form of fraud isn't new. What's new is the ease of hacking in and gathering information, and the ease of impersonating people who never talk to each other on the phone or in person.

My company nearly got done...

The MD was on a scheduled visit to the USA and a very plausible email in their name made it through to the finance manager. They were about to pay it when something in the back of their mind led to call the MD and check.

We think that they had been researching the MD and used social media to work out when they were travelling.

Don't worry. All of your income tax returns are totally safe with your city or school district.

Yeah, I live in one of the states that allow cities to leverage an income tax against their citizens. :-(

One of my clients recently outsourced their accounting to India. So at one point I received an email in somewhat uncertain English asking me for my bank details because they needed to make a payment. Obviously, I trashed it without reading it. I realized what happened only months later when I noticed I wasn't getting paid any more.

Paper-only invoicing

Because everyone knows any invoice written on paper must be 100% trustworthy.