Community Chat

[sidsmom]

I commend her for telling the story.

Very humbling. 

1.  It wasn't HER, but her office who did this.

2. Barbara is worth $80,000,000.  A $400,000 wire is like $300 to most people.  Everything in context.  

[GenXmuse]

$300 might be a lot to everyone else including me. 

[Love my grandkids]

I read the story on line. She says, and we all know, that the scammer is long gone and so is the money.

She should have had a better system of control of the finances. Maybe now she will.

[chrystaltree]

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@Mz iMac wrote:

@Jordan2  Not that savy or smart.  Some folks are so smart they have no "common sense."

@Porcelainis absolutely correct.....

"Barbara Corcoran should be approving wire transfers that large herself."

Rich people have staff to handle things like that.  That might be a lot of money to you and me but it wasn't a lot of money to her.  That's why her staff was handling it, it was routine and not at the level where she had to handle it.

End of story

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[SeaMaiden]

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@Mz iMac wrote:

@Jordan2  Not that savy or smart.  Some folks are so smart they have no "common sense."

@Porcelainis absolutely correct.....

"Barbara Corcoran should be approving wire transfers that large herself."

End of story

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When you get so big that $400,000 transfers are just approved without any checks or balances....it is time to slow down and start being more present. A good lesson for her.

[JaneMarple]

Could it be an inside job? Since it was so easy to get the transaction through without any approval?

[JaneMarple]

“Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran has a reason to celebrate.

After the businesswoman and TV personality said her office fell victim to a phishing attempt to the tune of nearly $400,000, Corcoran confirmed to USA TODAY Thursday that she got her money back.

"I’m thrilled! I had already accepted it and moved on. Everyone told me I wouldn’t get the money back and it just seems unbelievable," Corcoran told USA TODAY in a statement. "The money was wired through a German bank on the way to the scammer’s Chinese account. But my bank put pressure on the German bank and they froze the money giving us time to prove it was fraud. I really thought it was a goner!"

Corcoran told People magazine Wednesday her bookkeeper was duped into wiring the money after corresponding with hackers, who posed as Corcoran's assistant.

"I lost the $388,700 as a result of a fake email chain sent to my company," Corcoran told the outlet. "It was an invoice supposedly sent by my assistant to my bookkeeper approving the payment for a real estate renovation. There was no reason to be suspicious as I invest in a lot of real estate."

Corcoran, 70, said the money was wired on Tuesday and "my bookkeeper copied my assistant, who was shocked to see her name on the correspondence."

No one realized anything was awry until Corcoran's assistant saw the correspondence.

"The detail that no one caught was that my assistant’s email address was misspelled by one letter, making it the fake email address set up by the scammers," Corcoran said.

Email still beats texts – for hackers phishing for your data

Phishing attempts via email continue to be one of the most common places for scammers to target their victims.

Business email getting compromised "is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and super effective," Sam Small, the chief security officer for ZeroFOX, a firm that helps enterprises with security protection, told USA TODAY. 

Erich Kron, a "security awareness advocate," for KnowBe4, a Clearwater, Florida-based firm that trains employees about how to detect phishing attacks before it's too late, told USA TODAY email is "far and away the big one," due to volume. 

"The scammer disappeared and I’m told that it’s a common practice, and I won’t be getting the money back," Corcoran said, though she's maintaining a positive attitude. "I was upset at first, but then remembered it was only money."

USA TODAY has reached out to Corcoran's rep for comment.

[Moonlady]

She has a good attitude, anyway.

I just want her to get back on Shark Tank. They're making a habit of replacing her with other entrepreneurs, and I like the original "tank" lol.

[Katcat1]

So no one internally was in the scam?