Hi all, looking for any possible help on how to stop this scam, if it is even feasible.
My immediate family member is an executive at a large company based out of NYC. Someone is sending emails impersonating him, attempting to engage with various service based companies around the United States, many of them in the same or adjacent industries.
This is one of the emails sent to one of these target companies. A rogue actor is contacting them, impersonating him by using his actual name, but from a bogus email domain, and many of these companies are actually responding. In some cases they are smart enough to realize this cannot be real because of the '@dannywangspace.com' email extension, others seem to think this is possibly a legitimate business inquiry and start trying to contact him through his legitimate contact info.
As far as what the actual scam is here? I presume it is in the attachment that is mentioned by the bad actor in the email, my guess is opening this attachment contains something malicious or possibly links them to some other website to try to capture personal information about them.
I would hate for one of these companies to actually get scammed by way of his name, but I am also trying to see if there is any possible way to put a stop to all the noise this is creating, as many continue reaching out to my family member (calls, voicemails, emails, etc). Some think they are doing the right thing in trying to let him know he has been 'hacked' despite that not being the case, and others are attempting to engage further thinking there is a potential business opportunity for them.
The only path I can think of is to contact the authorities to let them know this is happening, but I can't see how any local PD could put a stop to this as it seems highly likely these emails are originating from somewhere outside the United States anyway.
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on how to potentially put a stop this?
Source: r/Scams · by /u/twelvefiftyone