Sharks took Barbara Corcoran‘s money, to the tune of $388,000 dollars, using a typo-domain registered that same day.
The domain BarbaraCorcran.com was registered on February 21 at Wild West Domains, via the Microsoft Office 365 platform and never had a web site resolving, as its primary use was email. The scammers impersonated an assistant to Barbara Corcoran and took over control of the ensuing communication exchange, issuing an invoice for “388,700.11” that was paid off in USD.
Nobody notified Barbara Corcoran apparently, and the money was already gone when the scam was exposed. The bank transaction was bounced via Germany to China, and the Shark Tank presenter acknowledged the pitfalls of not paying attention:
“Lesson learned: Be careful when you wire money!”
All this was achieved using a “reg fee” domain name!
The money wiring scam is not new; the Puerto Rico government lost more than $2.6 million after falling for a similar email phishing scam in January. Several other instances of such wiring scam have been reported as well.
Kudos: Dale G.
